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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 









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SPEECH and SCRAP BOOK 

FOR 

SPEAKERS 


Compiled by 
H. H. BROACH 

M 

and 

M. H. HEDGES 



Published and distributed by the 
SPEAKERS’ SERVICE BUREAU 
Minneapolis, Minnesota 




"pSbbZ- 

1 ^ 2-4 


COPYRIGHT, 1924 
by 

H. H. Broach 
All Rights Reserved 


Printed in the United States of America 

•=S3gg§E*.>3 

American Printing Company 
Minneapolis, Minn. 

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Jl'L 21 

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FOREWORD 


This speech and scrap book undertakes to present 
a collection of live and interesting statements, talks 
and speeches for those interested in coming into con¬ 
tact with practical affairs and stirring events. The 
endeavor has been to compile and put into the student’s 
hands constructive and interesting speeches, important 
facts and useful material to which he, or anyone aspir¬ 
ing to speak or write, can turn for ready reference and 
find assistance in preparing talks and arguments, 
statements and briefs, of various kinds. 

When this kind of collection and arrangement, 
combined with the speech making material, was first 
thought of to accompany the speaking course, it was a 
matter of surprise to find that something of its kind 
had not appeared long before. And if the material in 
these pages—especially the material in the scrap-book 
section—means to you, the student, what it has meant 
to those who collected it through a period of years, you 
will live with it; it will take hold of you, and you will 
turn to it for hope and inspiration again and again. 


Acknowledgments 

Editors of this book are aware that they owe a great debt 
of gratitude to those speakers and writers, and to their pub¬ 
lishers, who have generously allowed reprints of copyrighted 
material. They understand that these assistants have graciously 
given their work to this collection because they wished to for¬ 
ward an educational undertaking. 

To Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Harcourt Brace 
and Company, New York, for use of "The Rule of Joy” published 
in Justice Holmes’ "Collected Legal Papers.” 

To Miss Jane Addams for selecting for us, and for lending 
to us "Woman’s Business is to Feed the World.” 

To the William B. Dana Company, Publishers of "The Com¬ 
mercial and Financial Chronicle” for use of "The Banker and His 
Function Today” by Thomas W. Lamont; "Rehabilitation of 
Europe” by Paul Warburg; "What is Progress” by James M. 
Beck. 

To Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and to Herman Hagedorn, direc¬ 
tor Roosevelt Memorial Association, for use of "The Man With 
a Muck-rake.” 

To W. H. Parker, General Secretary, National Conference of 
Social Work, for use from the Annual Proceedings of that organ¬ 
ization the following: "Waste in Industry” by Herbert C. 
Hoover; "Our Nation’s Obligation to Her Children” by Julia 
C. Lathrop; “Progress of Legislation for Women” by Florence 
Kelley; "Factories and the Common Life” by Allen T. Burns. 

To Frederick A. Stokes Company, publishers, New York 
City, for use of Franklin K. Lane’s "Makers of the Flag” from 
the volume “The American Spirit.” 

To Julius H. Barnes and Merle Thorpe, Editor of the "Na¬ 
tion’s Business,” for "The American Political Philosophy in Its 
Economic and Social Aspects.” 

To Rhoda E. McCullough, Editor-in-Chief of the Woman’s 
Press for permission to reprint Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 
"Community Conservation of Women’s Strength.” 

To C. A. Prosser for selecting especially for this volume his 
piquant “Ghosts What Ain’t.” 

To Lewis W. Harthill for selecting and granting us the use 
of his "Responsibility for Crime,” and to George M. D. Posey for 
his “Sunshine of Life.” 

And to all others who have directly and indirectly given 
help, and for frequent use of government publications, and to 
those authors whose work has drifted to us from informal 
sources, we hereby acknowledge our indebtedness. 


The Editors. 


CONTENTS 


SECTION ONE 


Co-operation Wins—by Aaron Sapiro... 15 

Mr. Sapii'o is counsel for several producers’ co-op¬ 
eratives on the Pacific Coast. He has led a cam¬ 
paign throughout the wheat growing states for a 
producers’ wheat pool, besides organizing a co-op¬ 
erative potato marketing organization. He speaks 
vividly to farmer and business man alike. 


The Rule of Joy—by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 21 

Justice Holmes is a distinguished son of a distin¬ 
guished father. Though an eminent jurist on the U. S. 

Supreme Bench, he has never lost interest in litera¬ 
ture as such, an interest no doubt, inherited from 
the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and stands 
today in the ranks of lawyers who are also men of 
letters, as this speech shows. 


Woman’s Business is to Feed the World—by Jane Addams.... 27 

Miss Addams is sometimes called the best-loved 
woman in America. She was the pioneer in the set¬ 
tlement house experiment, founding Hull House on 
Chicago’s west side about a quarter of a century 
ago. She has never forsaken her interest in the im¬ 
migrant, extending it in these later years to all 
people of the world in her struggle for a new inter¬ 
nationalism. All she says is tinged with a warm 
humanity, and this no doubt is one merit that 
makes her in such demand as a speaker. 

The Naval Race—by William E. Borah. 35 

Senator Borah has been a prominent figure in our 
national life for more than a decade. He is well 
known as a public speaker. 

Our Nation’s Obligation to Her Children—by Julia C. 

Lathrop . 39 

Miss Lathrop belongs to the Jane Addams school of 
American womanhood. For a generation she has 
been interested in child welfare, both as public 
servant and private citizen. She was formerly head 
of the Federal Children’s Bureau and has spoken 
widely on social subjects. 


The Man with the Muck-rake—by Theodore Roosevelt. 47 

Mr. Roosevelt still lives in the minds of Americans 
of this generation as the most vigorous and vivid 
of our presidents, the best example of the orator of 
the strenuous school. 

The Banker and His Function Today—by Thos. W. Lamont.. 57 

Mr. Lamont is best known as a banker with a 
scholarly point of view. He is a member of the firm 
of J. P. Morgan and Company, Wall Street, New 
York. 







The American Political Philosophy in Its Economic and 

Social Aspects—by Julius H. Barnes. 69 

Mr. Barnes is president of the United States Cham¬ 
ber of Commerce. He is noted as a financier inter¬ 
ested in the wheat industry, and during the war 
attracted attention as an unofficial advisor to Her¬ 
bert C. Hoover. 


Waste in Industry—by Herbert C. Hoover. 83 

The secretary of the newly created U. S. Department 
of Commerce is an engineer who speaks with 
authority. 

Rehabilitation of Europe—by Paul Warburg. 91 


Mr. Warburg is a banker who has acted as head 
of the War Finance Corporation. During his term 
of office, he has spoken throughout the United 
States. 

What is Progress ?—by James M. Beck. 99 

As Solicitor-General of the United States, Mr. Beck 
often spoke on public questions other than political. 

He is a speaker much sought after by bar asso¬ 
ciations. 

Makers of the Flag—by Franklin K. Lane. 109 

Though a Canadian by birth, Mr. Lane, as secretary 
of the U. S. Department of the Interior gave devo¬ 
tion to his adopted country. This address is one of 
the most eloquent of the many apostrophes to the 

flag. 

War Must Go—by Carrie Chapman Catt. 116 

Mrs. C'att has been named the most noted woman 
publicist in America, and is widely recognized for 
her ability as a public speaker. 


More Than Mere Success of Party—by Woodrow Wilson. 121 

As president of Princeton University, as governor 
of New Jersey and President of the United States, 

Mr. Wilson had a meteoric career, beyond perhaps 
any other American. His gift as a speaker is well 
known. 


The Salvaging of Western Civilization—by Glenn Frank. 127 

Mr. Frank is editor of the Century Magazine and a 
lecturer of note. 

Community Conservation of Women’s Strength—by Char¬ 
lotte Perkins Gilman... 135 

Mrs. Gilman is the leading feminist of the United 
States. She is the author of a number of books, and 
is known widely as a lecturer. 

Ghosts What Ain’t—by C. A. Prosser. 143 

Mr. Prosser is a prominent speaker in behalf of 
vocational education as president of the Dunwoody 
Institute, trade schools, Minneapolis. 


Progress of Legislation for Women—by Florence Kelley. 149 

Mrs. Kelley is a leading woman economist and 
lecturer. 













Factories and the Common Life—by Allen T. Burns. 157 

Mr. Burns is a member of the executive committee 
of the National Conference of Social Work and in 
demand as a public speaker. 

The New South—by Henry Grady. 167 


Mr. Grady was a newspaper man in Atlanta and 
afterwards a member of Congress. This address has 
sometimes been ranked with Lincoln’s Gettysburg 
Address in its significance to the South. 

Farming—by Robert G. Ingersoll.. 177 

Colonel Ingersoll is still beloved and admired by 
millions of Americans as an orator who was more 
than a mere speaker. This address seems as fitting 
today as it was on the day it was given. 


Three Short Addresses on Death—by Robert G. Ingersoll. 191 

These three short orations are characteristic of 
a number he delivered on this question. 

To Liberty—by Henry George. 199 


The persistence with which Mr. George’s theory of 
single tax survives is in part due to the vitality of 
his personality. He appealed to many kinds of 
strong men, and his charm and vigor were never 


more apparent than from the public platform. 

Woman—by Horace Porter. 203 

General Porter belongs to a fine old school of after 
dinner speakers, and this is one of his most typical 
addresses. 

Two Short Addresses—by Abraham Lincoln.. 211 


Oxford University accepts Lincoln’s prose as a 
standard. Lincoln has probably inspired more 
speakers than any other. American, and yet his sim¬ 
plicity of utterance is rarely achieved by lesser 
men. These two speeches reveal him at his best, 
and incidentally embody elevated thinking about the 
American Republic. 

Responsibility for Crime—by Lewis W. Harthill. 217 

Mr. Harthill is former chief of police of Minneapolis. 

The fact that he learned at first hand some of the 
problems that confront the criminologist, and left 
his office with a vigorous theory about the relation 
of environment to crime makes what he has to say 
of interest. 

“We the People” or “We the States”—by Patrick Henry. 225 

What school boy has not thrilled to the “Give me 
liberty or give me death” speech ? Henry was a 
brilliant, daring, versatile speaker. This address 
shows how coldly he could think as well as how 
passionately he could feel. 


Farewell—by Henry Clay. 231 

This speech reveals the sobriety of utterance habit¬ 
ual with the great southern statesman. 

The American Experiment—by Daniel Webster. 237 


No collection of American oratory would be com¬ 
plete without some excerpt from Webster. He stood 
for half a century as the finest type of American 
orator. 













243 


The Sunshine of Life—by George M. D. Posey. 

Mr. Posey is a successful salesman interested in 
speaking. This speech represents a lifetime enthus¬ 
iasm for platform address. 


A Group of Speeches—by H. H. Broach.*. 251 

Mr. Broach, who is the author of “A Short, Simple 
Course in Speaking,” makes almost daily appear¬ 
ances on the public platform. He has spoken in shop 
and field, to workers and business men, to women’s 
clubs and political gatherings. Out of this life, he 
has developed a style that is distinguished for vigor 
and simplicity. 


SECTION TWO 


How to Conduct Meetings—by M. H. Hedges. 265 

How to Use a Library—by M. H. Hedges. 271 


One of the editors of this course undertakes to re¬ 
duce to the simplest terms the science of conducting 
meetings, and the science of attaining knowledge. 


SECTION THREE 


Scrap-Book Section . 277 

Every successful speaker and writer keeps a scrap¬ 
book. It becomes the repository for all kinds of 
material, drawn from the four corners of the world 
of knowledge, out of which he builds in turn his 
speech or his article. Scraps are saved for different 
reasons, for beauty of language, for suggestive 
thinking, for a concise statement of facts and 
figures, for the fact that such and such a person 
spoke boldly or clearly, for the light thrown on vexed 
problems, for one of a dozen reasons. The student 
of this course is fortunate in having put at his serv¬ 
ice scrap-book material hoarded by the editors over 
a period of years of active reading and working. It 
represents, the editors believe, the fullest anthology 
of material touching social and public life yet 
gathered together. Mr. Broach especially has given 
generously from his collection in which he has kept 
material gathered in every section of the United 
States for his own use and enlightenment. His 
interest in public and industrial questions, and his 
wide travel makes this material significant and 
valuable to the student. 







SECTION ONE 






CO - OPERATION WINS 


by 


AARON SAPIRO 











Co-Operation Wins 


by 

Aaron Sapiro 


From an address given before a Con¬ 
ference of Farmers and Business 
Men. 


Group production, group capital, group distribution, those 
are the distinctive things of normal industry today. Those are 
the things on which you men have built up your great businesses. 
Those are the things which have made you leaders of the states 
of Minnesota and North Dakota here present at this evening 
meeting. Farming is the only exception to the rule of group 
production. The one peculiar characteristic of farming is in¬ 
dividual production. Every man of you not only recognizes 
this as a fact, but every man of you recognizes that 
as an ideal. Every man of you dreams of the country as 
a great, happy country, settled by individual farmers, their 
farms where the farmer owns the farm and conducts it as an 
individual unit of national progress. 

That has been the ideal of many, many years, and all of 
you know that the characteristic of farming is individual produc¬ 
tion. What then is the real problem of the farmer? The prob¬ 
lem is, how can the farmer take the products of individual 
production and fit them into a system of group finance and group 
marketing? How can the farmer, as an individual, meet the 
problem of group marketing ? He never can do it when he sells 
his own product as an individual. All he can do is to take his 
things to the market and, blindly and unintelligently, take them 
to the first man who will buy them. 

He is pushed by his debts, he is pushed by his creditors, he 
does not know how to guess, and he does not know how to calcu¬ 
late. He has his wheat, he has his cotton, he knows it is 
harvested once a year, to be used all through the 12 months. He 
doesn’t have any conception of world conditions on it and he 
blindly throws it on the market, each one man against the other 
man and he breaks his own price by dumping. 

Dumping is a characteristic of individual selling by the 
farmer, and the individual farmer must dump, because no single 
individual farmer can ever solve the group problem of mar¬ 
keting. 


15 


CO-OPERATION WINS 


Now, what have you done to try to bridge that over, to try 
to show the farmer that his great difficulty is to take his in¬ 
dividual products and to feed them into a system of group mar¬ 
keting? Why, you men have not shown him any way out. 

You have made it a perfectly easy thing for smooth-tongued 
politicians to go to the farmer and promise him anything because 
he has no analysis of his own situation, so that he could tell 
the true from the false. Why, if you had taken the trouble to 
explain to the farmers exactly what their problem was, then 
they would gradually have sought a solution without falling for 
such ridiculous things as price stabilization and new political 
parties and all kinds of government action. 

They would have found an economic remedy for an eco¬ 
nomic problem, just as the farmer has found them in California 
and other sections of the world where co-operative marketing 
has been tried and not found wanting. 

It works with commodities, with things like eggs, of which 
California produces less than 4 per cent of the product of the 
Union! It worked before the war, it worked during the war, 
and it has worked since the war. It has worked in all kinds of 
credit conditions. It has worked with things that needed no 
financing. It has worked with things that have been fought 
bitterly from the beginning of the organization. It has worked 
where the whole continent and all the trade helped us organize. 
There is not a type of commodity on which co-operative market¬ 
ing will not work, if given a test by the growers, and if given 
some intelligent support by the merchants and the bankers and 
the leaders of the community. 

If there is a way out for the farmer, the way is not politics, 
and the way is not violence, and the way is not indignation, 
and the way is not getting on your knees, asking the government 
to treat you like a charity patient or to do things for you that 
it would not do for other industries. The way that has been 
found is the formation of co-operative marketing associations, to 
sell the products which are produced by individual effort and 
getting the growers to act as a group and thus enabling them 
as a group to solve the problem of group marketing. 

And men, I want to tell you that it works. It works with 
oranges. It took them 18 years to find out how to make it work 
even for oranges. It works for 22 different commodities in the 
state of California alone. They are handling more than $260,- 
000,000 worth of products each year on a pure co-operative 
marketing basis. They have handled since 1910 more than 
$2,000,000,000 worth of products on this pure co-operative basis. 
Who? The farmers organized in big commodity marketing 
associations. 


16 


CO-OPERATION WINS 


You—your farmers in Minnesota—you organized co-opera¬ 
tives first, and you organized them all wrong. You organized 
them on a local basis. 

Local organization is right for manufacturing, right for 
receiving, for grading, for packing, but it is absolutely wrong 
for farmers’ marketing activities. You let your farmers copy 
the consumers’ store system of England and think they were 
working co-operative marketing. For over 60 years they have 
been building a wrong type of co-operative in the state of 
Minnesota, while you business men, who certainly must have 
known better, did not observe, or, observing, kept your silence. 

Why, in California, from 1886 to 1904, we staggered along 
with these little locals, each one dumping against the other, and 
none of them able to do merchandising. Finally, we found the 
truth, that you had to organize the commodity as far as you 
could, and they have organized the commodity. You can just 
feed it out to the markets of the world as those markets can 
absorb it, and do merchandising with raw farm crops just as 
you do merchandising with flour, with automobiles, with every¬ 
thing else, that is sold around this country. 

We have not done any miracles with co-operative marketing. 
We have simply applied your business principles to the farm, and 
we have made them work. 

Oh, yes, in California we never started a single movement 
but that somebody stood on the side lines and said “Yes, it will 
work with oranges but it won’t work with beans. It will work 
with beans, but it won’t work with almonds. It will work with 
almonds but it won’t work with peaches, or prunes, or eggs; 
it won’t work with milk, and it won’t work with barley.” 

Why, men, every time we started at these movements we 
had the great dealers, the men who had the experience, stand on 
the sidelines and sneer at us and tell us that it will work with 
anything else except the pet thing that hits their pocketbooks. 

But co-operative marketing has yet to record its first com¬ 
modity failure in California. It has yet to record that com¬ 
modity marketing will not work with any type of product which 
is presented to it. Why? Because we are doing with farming 
simply what you have done with business. 

We have studied your methods of business. We saw that 
you did not manufacture flour and then have every little stock¬ 
holder in your concern, or in your corporation, take his share 
of flour and throw it on the market as he likes. 

We know that you market together. You market your flour 
and you have one policy for selling that flour all over the United 


17 


CO-OPERATION WINS 


States, studying the markets that can take it, advertising to get 
them to use more of your product. You market your stuff, send 
it to the markets that will absorb it at a fair price, you adjust 
your price to the demand, and every bit of it is done by experts 
who represent all the stockholders sitting in the main office. 
And yet some sit back and say it can’t be done. 

Now let me tell you, that not only has it been done but it 
has been done in places other than California. They always said 
that we could do it there because we had specialty crops. Well, 
cotton, is not a specialty crop and the cotton men are co-operat¬ 
ing today. More than $250,000,000 worth of cotton is being 
handled co-operatively today. Tobacco. Is that a specialty 
crop? You would not think so if you knew that tobacco is 
raised in this country by more than 300,000 of which more than 
230,000 are today organized, selling their tobacco through five 
distinct tobacco associations. 

It does not merely work in California. It works anywhere 
in the world where it has been tried. It does not work merely 
on perishables. It works with perishables, it works with semi¬ 
perishables, and it works with non-perishables. 


18 


THE RULE OF JOY 

by 


JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. 








The Rule of Joy 

by 

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 


Speech at a dinner given to Associate 
Justice Holmes by the Bar Associa¬ 
tion of Boston on March 7, 1900. 


Gentlemen of the Suffolk Bar: 

The kindness of this reception almost unmans me, and it 
shakes me the more when taken with a kind of seriousness 
which the moment has for me. As with a drowning man, the 
past is telescoped into a minute, and the stages are all here at 
once in my mind. The day before yesterday I was at the law 
school, fresh from the army, arguing cases in a little club with 
Goulding and Beaman and Peter Olney, and laying the dust of 
pleading by certain sprinklings which Huntington Jackson, an¬ 
other ex-soldier, and I managed to contrive together. A little later 
in the day, in Bob Morse’s office, I saw a real writ, acquired a 
practical conviction of the differences between assumpsit and 
trover, and marvelled open-mouthed at the swift certainty with 
which a master of his business turned it off. 

Yesterday I was at the law school again, in the chair instead 
of on the benches, when my dear partner, Shattuck, came out 
and told me that in one hour the Governor would submit my 
name to the council for a judgeship, if notified of my assent. It 
was a stroke of lightning which changed the whole course of 
my life. 

And the day before yesterday, gentlemen, was thirty-five 
years ago and yesterday was more than eighteen years, ago. I 
have gone on feeling young, but I have noticed that I met fewer 
of the old to whom to show my deference, and recently I was 
startled by being told that ours is an old bench. Well, I accept 
the fact, although I find it hard to realize, and I ask myself, 
what is there to show for this half lifetime that has passed? I 
look into my book in which I keep a docket of the decisions of 
the full court which fall to me to write, and find about a thousand 
cases. A thousand cases, many of them upon trifling or transi¬ 
tory matters, to represent nearly half of a lifetime! A thousand 
cases, when one would have liked to study to the bottom and 
to say his say on every question which the law ever has pre- 


21 


THE RULE OF JOY 


sented, and then to go on and invent new problems which should 
be the test of doctrine, and then to generalize it all and write 
it in continuous, logical, philosophic exposition, setting forth 
the whole corpus with its roots in history and its justifications 
of expedience real or supposed! 

Alas, gentlemen, this is life. I often imagine Shakespeare 
or Napoleon summing himself up and thinking: “Yes, I have 
written five thousand lines of solid gold and a good deal of pad¬ 
ding—I, who would have covered the milky way with words that 
outshone the stars!” “Yes, I beat the Austrians in Italy and 
elsewhere: I made a few brilliant campaigns, and I ended in 
middle life in cul-de-sac—I, who had dreamed of a world mon¬ 
archy and Asiatic power.” We cannot live our dreams. We are 
lucky enough if we can give a sample of our best, and if in our 
hearts we can feel that it has been nobly done. 

Some changes come about in the process, changes not neces¬ 
sarily so much in the nature as in the emphasis of our interest. 
I do not mean in our wish to make a living and to succeed—of 
course, we all want those things—but I mean in our ulterior 
intellectual or spiritual interest, in the ideal part, without which 
we are but snails or tigers. 

One begins with a search for a general point of view. After 
a time he finds one, and then for a while he is absorbed in testing 
it, in trying to satisfy himself whether it is true. But after 
many experiments or investigations all have come out one way, 
and his theory is confirmed and settled in his mind; he knows in 
advance that the next case will be but another verification, and 
the stimulus of anxious curiosity is gone. He realizes that his 
branch of knowledge only presents more illustrations of the 
universal principle; he sees it all as another case of the same old 
ennui, or the same sublime mystery—for it does not matter what 
epithets you apply to the whole of things, they are merely judg¬ 
ments of yourself. At this stage the pleasure is no less, per¬ 
haps, but is the pure pleasure of doing the work, irrespective 
of further aims, and when you reach that stage you reach, as it 
seems to me, the triune formula of joy, the duty, and the end 
of life. 

It was of this that Malebranche was thinking when he said 
that if God held in one hand truth, and in the other the pursuit 
of truth, he would say: “Lord, the truth is for thee alone; give 
me the pursuit.” The joy of life is to put out one’s power in 
some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. 
And the real misery is not to do this. The hell of the old world’s 
literature is to be taxed beyond one’s powers. This country has 
expressed in story—I suppose because it has experienced it in 
life—a deeper abyss, of intellectual asphyxia or vital ennui, when 
powers conscious of themselves are denied their chance. 


22 


THE RULE OF JOY 


The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one. I 
confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about 
equally unreal. With all humility, I think, “Whatsoever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with thy might" infinitely more important 
than the vain attempt of love one's neighbor as one's self. If 
you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will 
in a focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and, equally, 
you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be 
living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird 
on the wing. 

The joy, the duty, and, I venture to add, the end of life. I 
speak only of this world, of course, and of the teachings of this 
world. I do not seek to trench upon the province of spiritual 
guides. But from the point of view of the world the end of life 
is life. Life is action, the use of one's powers. As to use them 
to their height is our joy and duty, so it is the one end that 
justifies itself. Until lately the best thing that I was able to 
think of in favor of civilization, apart from blind acceptance 
of the order of the universe, was that it made possible the artist, 
the poet, the philosopher, and the man of science. But I think 
that is not the greatest thing. Now I believe that the greatest 
thing is a matter that comes directly home to us all. When it 
is said that we are too much occupied with the means of living 
to live, I answer that the chief worth of civilization is just that 
it makes the means of living more complex; that it calls for 
great and combined intellectual efforts, instead of simple, unco¬ 
ordinated ones, in order that the crowd may be fed and clothed 
and housed and moved from place to place. Because more com¬ 
plex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer 
life. They mean more life. Life is an end in itself, and the only 
question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have 
enough of it. 

I will add but a word, we all are very near despair. The 
sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, 
faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and 
the deep, sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise 
of our powers. In the words of a touching Negro song— 

Sometimes I's up, sometimes I’s down, 

Sometimes I's almost to the groun’; 

but these thoughts have carried me, as I hope they will carry 
the young men who hear me, through long years of doubt, self¬ 
distrust, and solitude. They do now, for, although it might seem 
that the day of trial was over, in fact it is renewed each day. The 
kindness which you have shown me makes me bold in happy 
moments to believe that the long and passionate struggle has not 
been quite in vain. 


23 




















WOMAN’S BUSINESS 
IS TO 

FEED THE WORLD 


by 


JANE ADDAMS 




Woman’s Business Is to Feed 
the World 


by 

Jane Addams 


An address given to Club Women on 
Food Conservation. 


Those of us who have lived among immigrants realize that 
there is highly developed among them a certain reverence for 
food. Food is the precious stuff men live by, that which is ob¬ 
tained only after long and toilsome labor; it is the cherished 
thing which the poor have seen come into their homes little by 
little and often not enough, since they were children, until to 
waste it has come to seem sinful and irreligious. 

Much may be achieved by utilizing this reverence for food, 
and we may also help immigrant parents and their Americanized 
children to work happily and usefully together in food pro¬ 
duction. 

At Hull House on last Thanksgiving Day a very charming 
little girl stood in the doorway of my room holding between her 
firm little hands a bowl containing corn meal mush which she 
had made from corn she had helped her Italian mother to raise 
in a city garden plot and had later ground in a coffee mill. The 
delectable yellow mass was surrounded by syrup, also of their 
own growing, for in the same garden patch they had cultivated 
the sugar beets from which they had made this syrup. Appar¬ 
ently they had found much companionship and the use of all 
their faculties in these processes. 

People change their food habits very slowly, we all like best 
“what mother used to make.” Immigrants in America some¬ 
times continue for years to import their accustomed foods. To 
make radical changes in our food habits requires a genuine incen¬ 
tive and a driving motive. It implies a struggle, none the less 
real, because it is concerned with domestic adjustments. The 
effort which is now being demanded from women is in a sense 
but part of that long struggle from the blindness of individuality 
to the consciousness of common ends—almost an epitome of 
human progress itself. 


27 


WOMAN’S BUSINESS IS TO FEED THE WORLD 


From the time we were little children we have all of us, 
at moments at least, cherished overwhelming desires to be of 
use in the great world, to play a conscious part in its progress. 
The difficulty has always been in attaching our vague purposes 
to the routine of our daily living, in making a synthesis between 
our ambitions to cure the ills of the world on the one hand and 
the need to conform to household requirements on the other. 

It is a very significant part of the situation, therefore, that 
at this world’s crisis the two have become absolutely essential 
to each other. A great world purpose cannot be achieved with¬ 
out our participation founded upon an intelligent understanding 
—and upon the widest sympathy, at the same time the demand 
can be met only if it is attached to our domestic routine, its 
very success depending upon a conscious change and modification 
of our daily habits. 

It is no slight undertaking to make this synthesis, it is 
probably the most compelling challenge which has been made 
upon woman’s constructive powers for centuries. They must 
exert all their human affection and all their clarity of mind in 
order to make the great moral adjustment which the situation 
demands. 

But what have the women’s clubs done for us, of what worth 
is the comradeship and study carried on through so many years, 
if they cannot serve you in a great crisis like this? (i. e. Great 
War) Through the earlier years of the Federated Club move¬ 
ment there was much abstract study of history, literature, sci¬ 
ence and the arts, as if both those women who had been deprived 
of the stimulus which collective intellectual effort brings and 
those women who had sadly missed their old college companion¬ 
ships, were equally determined to find it through the widely 
organized clubs. It was rather the fashion in those earlier days 
to make fun of this studious effort, it was called foolish and 
superficial and a woman was sometimes told that it would be 
much better for her to study the art of darning her husband’s 
stockings and the science of cooking his meals. 

Nevertheless the women kept on with a sound instinct, per¬ 
haps, for what they needed most—a common background and a 
mutual understanding, in short the very cultivation which has 
so wonderfully illumined and unified the practical affairs which 
they have undertaken during these later years. And because 
thousands of women made a sustained effort to comprehend the 
world in which we live, it may now be possible to summon to 
the aid of the club women everywhere an understanding of 
woman’s traditional relation to food, of her old obligation to 
nurture the world. We may be able to thus lift the challenge of 
the present moment into its historic setting. 

Back of history itself are innumerable myths dealing with 
the Spirits of the Corn who are always feminine and are usually 


28 


WOMAN’S BUSINESS IS TO FEED THE WORLD 


represented by a Corn Mother and her daughter, vaguely cor¬ 
responding to the Greek Demeter—the always fostering Earth 
and her child Persephone—the changing seasons. 

In Fraser’s “Golden Bough” two large volumes are given 
over to the history and interpretation of these Spirits of the 
Corn. 

He tells us that relics of the Corn Mother and the Corn 
Maiden are found in nearly all the harvest fields of the world, 
with very curious old customs. In many countries the last sheaf 
is bound in the shape, and even put into the clothes of an old 
woman and is then taken to the threshing floor where every¬ 
thing is done to please her. She is offered all the food and drink 
of the harvest home supper, that there may be a full harvest 
next year. The Corn Mother is also found among many tribes 
of North American Indians and the Eastern world has its Rice 
Mother, for whom there are solemn ceremonies when the seed 
rice, believed to contain “soul stuff,” is gathered. These deities 
are always feminine, as is perhaps natural from the association 
with fecundity and growth. 

Closely related to these old goddesses is much of the poetry 
and some which have gathered about the sowing of the grain and 
the gathering of the harvest, and those saddest plaints of all, 
expressing the sorrows of famine. 

The Musical Clubs of this Federation doubtless know them, 
certainly the Irish ones, as the Graphic Arts Departments are 
familiar with the renaissance in beauty which came with the 
Barbizon School, when the artists seriously concerned themselves 
with the toiling peasants of France. 

Perhaps those club women who cared most for history and 
the study of early social customs will be the first to realize that 
these myths centering about the Corn Mother but dimly fore¬ 
shadowed what careful scientific researches have later verified 
and developed. Students of primitive society believe that women 
were the first agriculturists and were for a long time the only 
inventors and developers of its processes. The men of the tribe 
did little for cultivating the soil beyond clearing the space and 
sometimes surrounding it by a rough protection. The woman 
as consistently supplied all cereals and roots eaten by the tribe 
as the man brought in the game and fish, and in early picture 
writing the short hoe became as universally emblematic of the 
woman as the spear did of the hunter or the shield and battle 
axe of the warrier. In some tribes it became a fixed belief that 
seeds would not grow if planted by a man, and apparently all 
primitive peoples were convinced that seeds would grow much 
better if planted by women. In Central Africa to this day a 


29 


WOMAN’S BUSINESS IS TO FEED THE WORLD 


woman may obtain a divorce from her husband and return to 
her father’s tribe, if the former fails to provide her with a gar¬ 
den and a hoe. 

Those club women who persistently kept up a study class in 
such stiff subjects as Comparative Religions and Philosophy, 
know how often a widespread myth has its counterpart in the 
world of morals. This was certainly true of the belief in the 
“fostering Mother.” Students in the origin of social customs 
contend that the gradual change from the wasteful manner of 
nomadic life to a settled and much more economic mode of exist¬ 
ence may be fairly attributed to these primitive agricultural 
women. We can easily imagine that when the hunting was poor 
or when the flocks needed a new pasture, that the men of the 
tribe would be for moving on, but that the women might insist 
that they could not possibly go until the crops were garnered; 
and that if the tribe were induced to remain in the same caves 
or huts until after harvest the women might even timidly hope 
that they could use the same fields next year, and thus avert 
the loss of their children sure to result from the alternation of 
gorging when the hunt was good and of starving when it was 
poor. The desire to grow food for her children led to a fixed 
abode and a real home from which our domestic morality and 
customs are supposed to have originated. With such an historic 
background, it is perhaps not surprising that peasant women 
all over the world are still doing a large part of the work con¬ 
nected with the growing and preparation of foods. One sees 
them in the fields in every country of Europe; by every roadside 
in Palestine they are grinding at the hand mills; in Egypt they 
are forever carrying the water of the Nile that the growing corn 
may not perish. American women—even the wives of ill-paid 
working men and the pioneer women on remote ranches have 
been relieved of much of this primitive drudgery, if only through 
the invention of plumbing and farm machinery. 

European visitors never cease to marvel at the leisure of 
American women, of the very sort from whom club women are 
largely drawn. The American woman is not, however, relieved 
of her responsibilities and it is well if she has so utilized her 
unprecedented leisure that at this moment in response to a great 
crisis she is able to extend her sympathies and to enlarge her 
conception of duty in such wise that the consciousness of the 
world’s needs becomes the actual impulse of her daily activities. 

A generous response to this situation may afford an oppor¬ 
tunity to lay over again the foundations for a wider morality, as 
woman’s concern for feeding her children made the beginning 
of an orderly domestic life. We are told that when the crops 
of grain and roots so painstakingly produced by primitive 
women began to have a commercial value that their production 
and exchange was taken over by men, as they later took over 


30 





WOMAN’S BUSINESS IS TO FEED THE WORLD 


the manufacturing of pottery and other of woman's early indus¬ 
tries. Such a history, of course, but illustrates that the present 
situation may be woman’s opportunity if only because foods at 
this moment are no longer being regarded from their money¬ 
making value but from the point of view of their human use. 

In these dark years, so destructive of the old codes, the 
nations forced back to their tribal function of producing and 
conserving food, are developing a new concern for the feeding of 
their people. All food supplies have long been collected and 
distributed through the utilization of the commercial motive. 
When it was commercially valuable to a man, to a firm or a 
nation, food was shipped; when it was not commercially valu¬ 
able, food was withheld or even destroyed. At the present 
moment, however, just as the British government has under¬ 
taken the responsibility of providing the British Isles with 
imported food, so other belligerent and neutral nations have been 
obliged to pursue the same course in order to avert starvation. 
Commercial competition has been suppressed, not in response to 
any theory, but because it could not be trusted to feed the feeble 
and helpless. There is no doubt that even after Peace is declared 
the results of starvation arising from the world’s shortage of 
food, will compel these governments to continue and even extend 
their purchasing in other lands. But such a state of affairs will 
itself indicate a new order—the substitution of the social utility 
motive for that of commercial gain. The nations in their official 
relations to each other totally lack that modification which has 
come in their internal politics by the increasing care of the poor, 
the concern for the man at the bottom, which has led to all 
sorts of ameliorative legislation, including the protection and 
education of children. In international affairs the nations have 
still dealt almost exclusively with political and commercial affairs 
considered as matters of “rights,” consequently they have never 
been humanized in their relations to each other as they have been 
in their internal affairs. 

It is quite understandable that there was no place for woman 
and her possible contribution in these international relationships, 
they were indeed not “woman’s sphere.” But it is not quite 
possible that as women entered into city politics, when clean 
milk and sanitary housing became matters for municipal legisla¬ 
tion, as they have consulted state officials when the premature 
labor of children and the tuberculosis death rate became factors 
in a political campaign, so they may normally be concerned with 
international affairs when these are dealing with such human 
and poignant matters as food for the starving and the rescue of 
women and children from annihilation. 

There are unexpected turnings in the paths of moral evolu¬ 
tion and it would not be without precedent if, when the producing 
and shipping of food was no longer a commercial enterprise 


31 


WOMAN’S BUSINESS IS TO FEED THE WORLD 


but had been gradually shifted to a desire to feed the hungry, 
that a new and powerful force in international affairs would have 
to be reckoned with. 

The instinct to feed those with whom we have made alliance 
certainly bears an analogy to those first interchanges between 
tribe and tribe, when a shortage of food became the humble 
beginning of exchange. At the present moment the Allied Na¬ 
tions are collecting and conserving a common food supply and 
each nation is facing the necessity of making certain concessions 
to the common good that the threat of famine for all may be 
averted. A new internationalism is being established day by 
day; the making of a more reasonable world order, so cogently 
urged by the President of the United States, is to some extent 
already under way—the war itself forming its matrix. An 
English economist has recently pointed out that in Europe gen¬ 
erally the war has thus far thrown the custom tariffs flat. 

Are they, perhaps, disappearing under this onslaught of 
energized pity for world wide needs? And is a motive power, 
new in the relations between nations being evolved in response 
to hunger and love, as the earlier domestic ethics had been? 
Under this new standard of measurements, preferential tariffs 
must inevitably disappear because the nation denied the open 
door must suffer in its food supplies; the control of strategic 
waterways or interstate railroad lines by any one nation who 
might be tempted to consider only the interest of its own com¬ 
merce, becomes unthinkable. 

It is possible that the more sophisticated questions of na¬ 
tional grouping and territorial control will gradually adjust them¬ 
selves if the paramount human question of food for the hungry 
be fearlessly and drastically treated upon an international basis. 
The League of Nations, destined to end wars, upon which the 
whole world led by President Wilson, is fastening its hopes, may 
be founded not upon broken bits of international law, but upon 
ministrations to primitive human needs. The League would then 
be organized de facto as all the really stable political institutions 
in the world have been. 

In this great undertaking women may bear a valiant part 
if they but stretch their minds to comprehend what it means in 
this world crisis to produce food more abundantly and to con¬ 
serve it with wisdom. 


32 


THE NAVAL RACE 


by 


WILLIAM E. BORAH 










































' 






























































































































- • 






















































































































































The Naval Race 


By 


William E. Borah 


In the U. S. Senate in December, 1922. 


It is perfectly clear to me that we are again threatened with 
a naval race. Different reasons for it have been assigned. I am 
not going to discuss it with reference to individual responsibility. 
But it is perfectly apparent that it is here, for the reasons which 
I shall undertake to disclose as the debate proceeds. 

Building is going on abroad, we are told, along all lines not 
specifically covered by the disarmament conference treaty. The 
things which were covered by that treaty have been regarded to 
some extent as not essential to a modern navy, and therefore the 
course now being pursued is that of a naval race in these things 
which really count in modern warfare. 

There is a very pronounced propaganda in the country in 
favor of an increased or enlarged navy. There is also a very 
remarkable propaganda in favor of an increased or enlarged 
army. The reasons which are assigned for this are because not 
only of the building abroad in naval affairs, but because of the 
economic conditions and the discontent and distress which pre¬ 
vail throughout the world. We are told almost daily by the 
admirals of the Navy or by those who are high in authority in 
the Army that we may expect almost any day a condition of 
affairs abroad which will necessitate our having a vast navy and 
a very much larger army. 

It is not my intention, as I said a moment ago, to indulge in 
personal criticism. I only call attention to the condition of 
affairs, and that is that we are again entering upon a competitive 
race in armament, that we are practically abandoning any fur¬ 
ther effort along the line of disarmament or the limitation of 
armament. Before we accept such a course we ought to survey 
the situation with reference to our present condition and as to 
what will probably follow. It is my purpose briefly to call atten¬ 
tion to some of the conditions in this country at this time. 

Mr. President, our present national indebtedness is between 
twenty-one billion and twenty-two billion dollars—an almost 
inconceivable sum when one attempts to measure it with any 


35 


THE NAVAL RACE 


degree of accuracy or intelligence. In these days we speak of 
billions in glib terms, but when one comes to measure what 
$22,000,000,000 means in the way of an indebtedness it is pretty 
difficult to get a thorough comprehension of it. At the close of 
the Civil War we had an indebtedness of about two and a half 
billion dollars. 

In the space of 50 years we had reduced it about one-half. 
At the same rate of reduction we now have an indebtedness 
which it will take us over twelve hundred years to pay. When 
we seek to measure the payment of this debt in human toil, in 
energy, in sacrifice, and in suffering it is beyond the power of 
human language to portray the seriousness of this burden. The 
entire amount of gold which has been produced since 1492 is 
$5,000,000,000 less than our present national debt. 

In addition to our national debt we have at present an 
annual expenditure of something about three and one-half billion 
dollars a year—possibly a little less, possibly a little more. It 
has not been so very long since we were regarded as unduly 
extravagant when it was known that we had had a billion dollar 
Congress in the way of appropriations; but, now, four years 
after the close of the World War, after all those expenditures 
which have particularly to do with the prosecution of the war 
are supposed to have been eliminated, or at least greatly modified, 
we still have a national expenditure of some three and a half 
billion dollars a year. 

That, however, Mr. President, only gives a very inadequate 
glimpse of the real condition of affairs in this country. When 
we take in consideration the national debt and the national ex¬ 
penditure we have only a portion and a very inadequate portion, 
comparatively speaking, of the entire debt and the entire burden 
which rests upon the American people at this time. 


36 


OUR NATION’S OBLIGATION 


TO 

HER CHILDREN 

by 


JULIA C. LATHROP 




Our Nation’s Obligation to 
Her Children 


By 

Julia C. Lathrop 


An address given before National 
Conference of Social Work. 


I do not know who gave me this ambitious subject for an 
address, and yet I am not quite sorry to have it. I understand 
that someone has spoken about the government at a meeting of 
this conference in terms of “brass tacks.” I, of course, as an 
employe of our government shall speak with marked gentleness. 

Times change, but is it necessary to have any better defini¬ 
tion of the obligation of our nation to her children than that it 
shall secure to each of them the inalienable right set forth in 
the Declaration of Independence to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness? It is for us in our little day to do what we can 
toward translating that dictum. We are sure, of course, that 
we see a few things that our forefathers did not see, and those 
of us who have any sense of the future know that posterity will 
smile over the things we do not see. 

I have been accustomed for the last nine years to think 
chiefly of the federal government’s obligation to children, which 
is quite a different and much more manageable subject than 
that assigned me and I shall venture to speak chiefly of the gov¬ 
ernment’s obligation. 

Under the Constitution it is the right of the state to make 
laws regarding the children and the family. The government 
has a restricted function—it can investigate and report. This 
has a hollow sound as applied to the seven million illiterate per¬ 
sons in our land, most of them born and bred here. It is a hol¬ 
low answer to the parents of more than two hundred thousand 
children who die yearly, a large proportion of them needlessly. 
It is a hollow answer to children who begin work before they 
learn how to use their minds and are doomed to the lowest level 
of comfort and dignity for all their lives in consequence. It has 
a hollow sound to the immigrant accustomed to centralized 
bureaucratic control, who comes to the United States with its 
magic promise—not to any one of the forty-eight states, whose 


39 


THE NATION'S OBLIGATION TO HER CHILDREN 


names he does not know, but one of which will govern in the 
main him and his children. Yet what can be done by investiga¬ 
tion and report? 

Perhaps it is not so discouraging: The great power of the 
Department of Agriculture lies in fifty years of investigating 
and reporting. Out of that it has come to have certain regula¬ 
tory provisions, but its great services to the country are those 
it has made by investigation and report, and these have been 
fundamental to the laws which have developed from them. The 
department makes continuously an invaluable contribution 
toward forwarding the science of agriculture by its laboratory 
research, and by its investigations at home and in foreign lands. 
It reports by sending agents into every country to advise as to 
soils and stock, and the details of farm work. It sends women 
agents to the door to advise as to household arts. It keeps travel¬ 
ing experts who develop canning clubs for girls, corn clubs, and 
pig clubs for boys. It shows extraordinary skill, ingenuity, and 
directness in its reporting the manifold applications of scientific 
research to the daily work of men and women engaged in agri¬ 
culture, yet it exerts no authority. 

It is by this approach that the Children’s Bureau is trying 
to work—investigation and report in the field of child welfare, 
the social field. Here the methods of research are slow, pains¬ 
taking and undeveloped, and methods of reporting are still less 
developed. Yet the spade work of the last nine years encourages 
a belief in the rich contribution which such a government bureau 
can in time be made to give. Does not the theory of a demo¬ 
cratic non-centralized government depend upon this method? If 
facts can be discovered and so uncolored in true proportion 
before us, can we not trust ourselves to understand and work 
out the remedies? There is only one answer in the long run, 
and it is affirmative. 

Ever since I learned of the recent death of Mr. Edward B. 
Rosa, chief physicist of the Bureau of Standards, I have desired 
an opportunity before a great audience of social workers to pay 
tribute to that modest scientific gentleman for the aid which he 
gave those who work in the field of social science. 

We are told that after being challenged by the Congressional 
Appropriations Committee as to the estimates submitted for the 
expenses of the Bureau of Standards, he determined to assemble 
precise data as to the general cost of the government, and he pre¬ 
pared a paper which finally took form under the title of “Ex¬ 
penditures and Revenues of the Federal Government,” published 
this May, which showed at an opportune moment the relative cost 
of the various activities of the government. We shall never 
know quite how much he has contributed to that change in the 
popular current thought on the subject of disarmament of which 


40 


THE NATION’S OBLIGATION TO HER CHILDREN 


we are now all aware. He made his facts clear by terse state¬ 
ments in simple English, by absolute precision of data, by charts 
and tables, by “pies” cut in labeled “pieces.” In the 1920 “pie” 
the sector containing social and industrial research is hardly 
visible to the naked eye, while the share of the Bureau I know 
best could not be seen. Indeed, the Children’s Bureau, spurred 
on by the indignity of being unable to find itself, turned to calcu¬ 
lating percentages whereby it discovered that its cost of $271,- 
000 for the year was less than i /2 of 1 per cent of the tiny 
“piece” spent for education, developmental, and research func¬ 
tions, and a trifle less than 5/1000 of 1 per cent of the whole 
budget and exactly 5/1000 of 1 per cent of the war “piece.” 

These figures of Rosa’s are not new. Usually they have 
been sedately, innocuously filed. They never entered the popular 
mind, yet they express stern living facts which he has driven 
into the understanding of the amiable and careless public. Rosa 
makes us see that war—past, present and future—cost 93 per 
cent of all the money the government spent in 1920 and forces 
us to realize that our only salvation for the improvement of civil 
government, for social research and betterment, must come by 
reducing the 23 per cent for present military maintenance and 
preparation, because the great sector of the war debt, 68 per 
cent, must be paid. Those of us here clearly realize that demo¬ 
cratic improvement in attaining standards of living which will 
make much social work unnecessary must be slackened for many 
long years because of the war debts, and this meeting of social 
workers has given evidence of its belief in disarmament for this 
reason at least. 

It is the ambition of many a government officer to emulate 
the ingenuity and skill in research and reporting which made 
Rosa’s modest book his worthy monument. But the government 
has another method of serving the United States, the method of 
stimulating the activities of the states and aiding the federal 
states by appropriations on the fifty-fifty plan with which we 
are all familiar. For years, by this plan the Department of 
Agriculture, like a network of university extensions, has helped 
the farmer and his family. This fifty-fifty plan is improving 
our roads, and therefore reducing the isolation which is responsi¬ 
ble for much illiteracy and child-neglect. It is helping to improve 
vocational education. It is building up knowledge of social 
hygiene. Some of us trust that it may be invoked to improve 
the care of mothers and infants and to reduce the present infant 
and maternal death rates. The present Federal Child Labor 
Law, which undertakes to control the labor of children in indus¬ 
try by taxing the net income of industries which employ children 
illegally, is an experiment not yet passed upon by the Supreme 
Court. However, whether sustained or not, it can hardly be 
'depended upon as a precedent of federal legislation in the pro- 


41 


THE NATION’S OBLIGATION TO HER CHILDREN 


tection of children. Indeed extended governmental control 
would do violence to local autonomy beyond the measure of any 
benefit it could confer—as some of us believe. On the whole, 
the great service of the federal government in the child welfare 
field is that of improving, increasing, and popularizing knowledge 
—a vast series of government extension schools, if you please, 
where there is no compulsory attendance, but millions of eager 
students. 

The nation, through the machinery of its forty-eight states, 
is responsible for the welfare of children and in all those matters 
reserved by the Constitution for state control. The inequalities 
are great and even shocking. Sometimes they seem beyond 
toleration, but cheering indications of progress are observable. 
One may refer to the new interest in child health and the thirty- 
eight states which have in recent years created child hygiene 
divisions within their boards of health, to the vast increase in 
the popular conviction that children can be kept well and not 
need to be cured. The increase in rural and city public health 
nursing and in the number of child health centers throughout 
the country points in the same direction. The solution of the 
health problem should be more rapid, but it is well begun. The 
juvenile court movement swept the country with an enthusiasm 
of taking the helpless child of neglect out of the category of 
criminals, and all of our states have juvenile court laws, yet we 
were told in 1918 that of the one hundred and seventy-five thou¬ 
sand children who appeared before the courts, fifty thousand 
were heard in courts without adequate equipment for their rea¬ 
sonable protection. The effort to control child labor by good 
schools and compulsory education laws is steadily becoming more 
effective and is at last reaching toward the rural child. We 
must not be surprised, however, that foreign visitors are disap¬ 
pointed in us when they see some of our failures instead of 
looking only at the brilliant successes reported to them abroad 
and which, as a matter of fact, they have imitated. This in¬ 
equality is one of the evils of legislation by forty-eight separate 
states which time and public interest are slowly remedying. The 
Committee of Juvenile Court Standards which has been formed 
at this conference gives promise of study and research which 
will aid in stimulating interest and pride in equipping juvenile 
courts to serve the ends for which they were intended. 

Illiteracy is the worst blot on the national child welfare 
escutcheon. Whether it can be wiped off without aid from the 
federal government is an open question. For myself I wish we 
could use the fifty-fifty plan with some freedom for aid and 
stimulus to the states, for stated periods, not as permanent con¬ 
tributions. Congress might review every seven years and deter¬ 
mine to cease or continue, as the results justified—politics laid 
aside. Great progress has been made in some of the states in 


42 


THE NATION’S OBLIGATION TO HER CHILDREN 


the last few years, although the figures of the draft warn us of 
the enormous task which this generation has to perform in edu¬ 
cating young adults as well as children. There is hardly a state 
whose finances would not be strained if the appropriation really 
needed for elementary education were made immediately. 

No surer sign of the trend of state legislation toward better 
provision can be found than in the code commissions which have 
now been appointed in twenty-four states for the purpose of 
reviewing and improving legislation regarding children. Every 
one of these commissions has become aware of the child welfare 
legislation and standards in our other states and has endeavored 
to secure the best standards for its own state. These commis¬ 
sions may be temporary, but law is not static in our country, and 
the children’s codes will be reviewed again and again. These 
commissions are really engaged in legal research for the imme¬ 
diate use of their respective states, and thus we come around to 
the same proposition for the government and for the state, that 
only by painstaking study, by determined effort to know the 
facts and put them clearly before people and make them of 
practical use do we secure any real progress. By this method 
honestly pursued, we are on the path of democratic progress 
which cannot lead anywhere except toward better opportunity 
for life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness for every child. 
In fact one dares to hope that—not in our day but before the 
history of our country is all written—we shall add another clause 
and say that the rights of the child include not only the pursuit 
of happiness but its attainment. 


43 




THE MAN WITH THE 
MUCK-RAKE 


by 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 









The Man With the Muck-Rake 


By 

Theodore Roosevelt 


An address given in 1906 by Mr. 
Roosevelt on occasion of laying the 
corner-stone of the office building of 
House of Representatives. 


Over a century ago Washington laid the corner-stone of the 
Capitol in what was then little more than a tract of wooded 
wilderness here beside the Potomac. We now find it necessary to 
provide by great additional buildings for the business of the 
government. This growth in the need for the housing of the 
government is but a proof and example of the way in which the 
nation has grown and the sphere of action of the National Gov¬ 
ernment has grown. We now administer the affairs of a nation 
in which the extraordinary growth of population has been out¬ 
stripped by the growth of wealth and the growth in complex 
interests. The material problems that face us today are not 
such as they were in Washington’s time, but the underlying 
facts of human nature are the same now as they were then. 
Under altered external form we war with the same tendencies 
toward evil that were evident in Washington’s time, and are 
helped by the same tendencies for good. It is about some of 
these that I wish to say a word today. 

In Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” you may recall the de¬ 
scription of the Man with the Muck-Rake, the man who could 
look no way but downward, with the muck-rake in his hand; 
who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who 
would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but 
continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor. 

In “Pilgrim’s Progress” the Man with the Muck-Rake is 
set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal 
instead of on spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man who 
in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and 
fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile 
and debasing. Now, it is very necessary that we should not 
flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on 
the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and 
there are times and places where this service is the most needed 
of all the services that can be performed. But the man who 


47 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


never thinks or speaks or writes save of his feats with the muck¬ 
rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement 
to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil. 

There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many 
and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest 
war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and 
attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, 
every evil practice whether in politics, in business, or in social 
life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man 
who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with 
merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he 
in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is abso¬ 
lutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and 
if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse 
than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruth¬ 
fully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggera¬ 
tion to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic or indis¬ 
criminate assault upon character does no good, but very great 
harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an 
honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruth¬ 
fully assailed. 

Now, it is easy to twist out of shape what I have just said, 
easy to affect to misunderstand it, and if it is slurred over in 
repetition, not difficult really to misunderstand it. Some per¬ 
sons are sincerely incapable of understanding that to denounce 
mud-slinging does not mean the indorsement of whitewashing; 
and both the interested individuals who need whitewashing, and 
those others who practice mud-slinging, like to encourage such 
confusion of ideas. One of the chief counts against those who 
make indiscriminate assault upon men in business or men in 
public life is that they invite a reaction which is sure to tell 
powerfully in favor of the unscrupulous scoundrel who really 
ought to be attacked, who ought to be exposed, who ought, if 
possible, to be put in the penitentiary. If Aristides is praised 
overmuch as just, people get tired of hearing it; and over¬ 
censure of the unjust finally and from similar reasons results 
in their favor. 

Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, unfor¬ 
tunately, the reaction, instead of taking the form of punishment 
of those guilty of the excess, is very apt to take the form either 
of punishment of the unoffending or of giving immunity, and 
even strength, to offenders. The effort to make financial or 
political profit out of the destruction of character can only result 
in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, 
whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create 
a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time 
act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness 


48 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at 
any price. As an instance in point, I may mention that one 
serious difficulty encountered in getting the right type of men 
to dig the Panama Canal is the certainty that they will be 
exposed, both without, and, I am sorry to say, sometimes within, 
Congress, to utterly reckless assaults on their character and 
capacity. 

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is, 
not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of the 
politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who 
makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. 
There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out 
of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt 
down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, 
if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the 
attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime 
itself. It is because I feel that there should be no rest in the 
endless war against the forces of evil that I ask that the war 
be conducted with sanity as well as with resolution. The men 
with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being 
of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, 
and to look upward to the celestial crown above them to the 
crown of worthy endeavor. There are beautiful things above 
and round about them; and if they gradually grow to feel that 
the whole world is nothing but muck, their power of usefulness 
is gone. If the whole picture is painted black, there remains 
no hue whereby to single out the rascals for distinction from 
their fellows. Such painting finally induces a kind of moral 
color-blindness; and people affected by it come to the conclusion 
that no man is really black, and no man really white, but that 
all are gray. In other words, they believe neither in the truth 
of the attack, nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; 
they grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offence; it 
becomes well-nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against 
wrong-doing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a 
mental attitude in the public gives hope to every knave, and is 
the despair of honest men. 

To assail the great and admitted evils of our political and 
industrial life with such crude and sweeping generalizations as 
to include decent men in the general condemnation means the 
searing of the public conscience. There results a general atti¬ 
tude either of cynical belief in, and indifference to, public corrup¬ 
tion or else of distrustful inability to discriminate between what 
is good and what is bad. Either attitude is fraught with untold 
damage to the country as a whole. The fool who has not sense 
to discriminate between what is good and what is bad is well- 
nigh as dangerous as the man who does discriminate and yet 
chooses the bad. There is nothing more distressing to every 


49 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


good patriot, to every good American, than the hard, scoffing 
spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man 
as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crac¬ 
kling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant 
mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked 
before they could grow to fruition. 

There is any amount of good in the world, and there never 
was a time when loftier and more disinterested work for the 
betterment of mankind was being done than now. The forces 
that tend for evil are great and terrible but the forces of truth 
and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy 
are also stronger than ever before. It is a foolish and timid, no 
less than a wicked thing, to blink the fact that the forces of 
evil are strong, but it is even worse to fail to take into account 
the strength of the forces that tell for good. Hysterical sensa¬ 
tionalism is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for 
lasting righteousness. The men who, with stern sobriety and 
truth, assail the main evils of our time, whether in the public 
press, or in magazines, or in books, are the leaders and allies of 
all engaged in the work for social and political betterment. But 
if they give good reason for distrust of what they say, if they 
chill the ardor of those who demand truth as a primary virtue, 
they thereby betray the good cause, and play into the hands of 
the very men against whom they are nominally at war. 

In his “Ecclesiastical Polity” that fine old Elizabethan 
divine, Bishop Hooker, wrote: 

“He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are 
not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want atten¬ 
tive and favorable hearers, because they know the manifold 
defects whereunto every kind of regimen is subject; but the 
secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are in¬ 
numerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment 
to consider.” 

This truth should be kept constantly in mind by every free 
people desiring to preserve the sanity and poise indispensable 
to the permanent success of self-government. Yet, on the other 
hand, it is vital not to permit this spirit of sanity and self- 
command to degenerate into mere mental stagnation. Bad 
though a state of hysterical excitement is, and evil though the 
results are which come from the violent oscillations such excite¬ 
ment invariably produces, yet a sodden acquiescence in evil is 
even worse. At this moment we are passing through a period 
of great unrest—social, political, and industrial unrest. It is 
of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove 
to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere 
dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but 


50 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the better¬ 
ment of the individual and the nation. So far as this movement 
of agitation throughout the country takes the form of a fierce 
discontent with evil, of a determination to punish the authors 
of evil, whether in industry or politics, the feeling is to be 
heartily welcomed as a sign of healthy life. 

If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of 
appetite against appetite, a contest between the brutal greed of 
the “have-nots” and the brutal greed of the “haves,” then it 
has no significance for good, but only for evil. If it seeks to 
establish a line of cleavage, not along the line which divides 
good men from bad, but along that other line, running at right 
angles thereto which divides those who are well off from those 
who are less well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable 
harm to the body politic. 

We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the 
man of capital than evil in the man of no capital. The wealthy 
man who exults because there is a failure of justice in the effort 
to bring some trust magnate to an account for his misdeed is 
as bad as, and no worse than, the so-called labor leader who 
clamorously strives to excite a foul class feeling on behalf of 
some other labor leader who is implicated in murder. One atti¬ 
tude is as bad as the other and no worse; in each case the accused 
is entitled to exact justice; and in neither case is there need of 
action by others which can be construed into an expression of 
sympathy for crime. There is nothing more anti-social in a 
democratic republic like ours than such vicious class-conscious¬ 
ness. The multi-millionaires who band together to prevent the 
enactment of proper laws for the supervision of the use of 
wealth, or to assail those who resolutely enforce such laws, or 
to exercise a hidden influence upon the political destinies of 
parties or individuals in their own personal interest, are a 
menace to the whole community; and a menace at least as great 
is offered by those laboring men who band together to defy the 
law, and by openly used influence to coerce law-upholding public 
officials. The apologists for either class of offenders are them¬ 
selves enemies of good citizenship; and incidentally they are 
also, to a peculiar degree, the enemies of every honest-dealing 
corporation and every law-abiding labor union. 

It is a prime necessity that if the present unrest is to result 
in permanent good the emotion shall be translated into action, 
and that the action shall be marked by honesty, sanity, and self- 
restraint. There is mighty little good in a mere spasm of 
reform. The reform that counts is that which comes through 
steady, continuous growth; violent emotionalism leads to ex¬ 
haustion. 


51 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


It is important to this people to grapple with the problems 
connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use 
of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business. 
We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes 
well won and fortunes ill won; between those gained as an inci¬ 
dent to performing great services to the community as a whole, 
and those gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the 
limits of mere law-honesty. Of course no amount of charity in 
spending such fortunes in any way compensates for misconduct 
in making them. As a matter of personal conviction, and with¬ 
out pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I 
feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of 
some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, 
beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or 
bequeathed upon death to any individual—a tax so framed as 
to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous 
fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one 
individual; the tax, of course, to be imposed by the National and 
not the State Government. Such taxation should, of course, be 
aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety 
of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. 

Again, the National Government must in some form exercise 
supervision over corporations engaged in inter-state business— 
and all large corporations are engaged in inter-state business— 
whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with 
the far-reaching evils of over-capitalization. This year we are 
making a beginning in the direction of serious effort to settle 
some of these economic problems by the railway rate legislation. 
Such legislation, if so framed, as I am sure it will be, as to 
secure definite and tangible results, will amount to a great deal 
more in so far as it is taken as a first step in the direction of a 
policy of superintendence and control over corporate wealth 
engaged in inter-state commerce, this superintendence and con¬ 
trol not to be exercised in a spirit of malevolence toward the 
men who have created the wealth, but with the firm purpose 
both to do justice to them and to see that they in their turn do 
justice to the public at large. 

The first requisite in the public servants who are to deal 
in this shape with corporations, whether as legislators or as 
executives, is honesty. This honesty can be no respecter of 
persons. There can be no such thing as unilateral honesty. The 
danger is not really from corrupt corporations: it springs from 
the corruption itself, whether exercised for or against cor¬ 
porations. 

The eighth commandment reads, “Thou shalt not steal." 
It does not read, “Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." It 
does not read, “Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It 


52 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


reads simply and plainly, “Thou shalt not steal.” No good 
whatever will come from that warped and mock morality which 
denounces the misdeed of men of wealth and forgets the mis¬ 
deed practised at their expense; which denounces bribery, but 
blinds itself to blackmail; which foams with rage if a corpora¬ 
tion secures favors by improper methods, and merely leers with 
hideous mirth if the corporation is itself wronged. The only 
public servant who can be trusted honestly to protect the rights 
of the public against the misdeeds of a corporation is that public 
man who will just as surely protect the corporation itself from 
wrongful aggression. If a public man is willing to yield to 
popular clamor and do wrong to the men of wealth or to rich 
corporations, it may be set down as certain that if the opportun¬ 
ity comes he will secretly and furtively do wrong to the public in 
the interest of a corporation. 

But, in addition to honesty, we need sanity. No honesty 
will make a public man useful if that man is timid or foolish, 
if he is a hot-headed zealot or an impracticable visionary. As 
we strive for reform we find that it is not at all merely the 
case of a long uphill pull. On the contrary, there is almost as 
much of breeching work as of collar work; to depend only on 
traces means that there will soon be a runaway and an upset. 
The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regula¬ 
tion and control of their business in the interest of the public 
by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my 
judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if 
they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind 
and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately 
provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming 
by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth. 

On the other hand, the wild preachers of unrest and dis¬ 
content, the wild agitators against the entire existing order, 
the men who act crookedly, whether because of sinister design 
or from mere puzzle-headedness, the men who preach destruc¬ 
tion without proposing any substitute for what they intend to 
destroy, or who propose a substitute which would be far worse 
than the existing evils—all these men are the most dangerous 
opponents of real reform. If they get their way, they will lead 
the people into a deeper pit than any into which they could fall 
under the present system. If they fail to get their way, they 
will still do incalculable harm by provoking the kind of reaction 
which, in its revolt against the senseless evil of their teaching, 
would enthrone more securely than ever the very evils which 
their misguided followers believe they are attacking. 

More important than aught else is the development of the 
broadest sympathy of man for man. The welfare of the wage¬ 
worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil—upon this depends 


53 


THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 


the welfare of the entire country; their good is not to be sought 
in pulling down others, but their good must be the prime object 
of all our statesmanship. 

Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic 
opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance 
to show the stuff of which he is made. Spiritually and ethically 
we must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. 
We appreciate that the things of the body are important; but 
we appreciate also that the things of the soul are immeasurably 
more important. The foundation stone of national life is and 
ever must be, the high individual character of the average citizen. 


54 


THE BANKER AND HIS 
FUNCTION TODAY 

by 


THOMAS W. LAMONT 










































































































































- • 


















































































































































































































































The Banker and His Function Today 

By 

Thomas W. Lamont 


An address given by a member of the 
firm of J. P. Morgan and Co., at dedi¬ 
cation exercises of a new Chicago 
Bank Building. 


This is an occasion which I welcome, not chiefly because of 
my great respect for the capable head of this institution; but 
because today we are gathered here to dedicate this beautiful 
new building to the encouragement and upbuilding of industry, 
of commerce, of sound business and of just and honorable deal¬ 
ing between man and man. This fair building, and the institu¬ 
tion which it houses, are placed in the midst of a great and 
glowing city, in the centre of a community vital with all the 
forces and enthusiasms that have made America what it is today. 
And here and under this roof, coming as I do as one of your 
neighbors—for surely in this modern world, where space and 
time count for naught, Chicago and New York are neighbors— 
this company of associates and friends, I hope it may be ap¬ 
propriate for me to say a few words on this business of banking 
in which so many of you here are engaged. 

Banking, like any other calling, has its critics and detrac¬ 
tors. Yet I hear no serious suggestion that the business of 
banking be abolished; for it still seems to serve the community 
and to contribute to its orderly growth; just as it has done since 
the days of those bankers of Venice who, six or seven hundred 
years ago, financed the shipment of goods from the Far East 
to the countries of Europe, and in that way opened up a new 
world; bringing to the knowledge of the West the riches and 
the mysticism of the East; giving new zest to adventure and to 
discovery, to science and to industry; enriching the fine arts; 
stimulating ideas and so setting the world further upon its way. 

I will not go so far as to say that the early merchant bankers 
were responsible for all these great developments that I have 
hinted at; but certainly they played no mean part in them. And 
from their time on down through the centuries the great bankers 
have always been—not the hard-headed conservatives and hold- 
ers-back that they are often pictured—but real constructors. 
The great bankers, I say—and what one among the fraternity 


57 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


is lacking in the ambition to be a great banker; great not neces¬ 
sarily in the eyes of the world, but great in the service which 
he renders to the community? Some of us may at times have 
been bounded by too narrow an horizon; but the number of 
such bankers is happily, I believe, growing less each year. The 
reason that the business world today has far fewer failures, in 
comparison to its size, than it had a generation ago is due in 
considerable measure to broader-minded banking methods. 
Nowadays far greater efforts are made by the banks to assist 
and to put on their feet again customers that fall into difficulties, 
even though such a course may mean temporary disadvantage 
to the bank. Far greater efforts too are made by the banks 
towards unity and concert of action in the case of clients whose 
troubles are common to them all. 

This simply means that we have had in the community a 
marked growth of that confidence which is the basis of all bank¬ 
ing. “Trust” is an old-fashioned Saxon and Norse word that 
came into business parlance almost as soon as its cognate word 
“true” came into colloquial use. Perhaps today we use more 
the rather technical phrase “to give credit,” but all that means 
is “to trust in,” “to have faith in.” The late Mr. J. P. Morgan’s 
remark, uttered only a few months before his death, to the effect 
that he’d rather loan a million dollars on character than on the 
best collateral in the world, has been repeated many times, and 
worthily, because it was a striking phrase to emphasize that 
quality of trust of faith. 

If the soundness of our own business depends upon the ex¬ 
tent to which we are able to trust our customers, how much 
more does the whole system of banking, of which we are a 
part, rest upon the faith that the community must place in us. 
And that faith which they have in us is bounded, not simply 
by their knowledge of our ordinary honesty, not simply by their 
belief that in our hands their savings and their deposits are safe; 
it has a far wider range. The community as a whole demands 
of the banker that he shall be an honest observer of conditions 
about him, that he shall make constant and careful study of 
those conditions, financial, economic, social and political, and 
that he shall have a wide vision over them all. The community 
does not insist that the banker shall be prophet too; but it does 
look to him for an intelligence of a high order and for a courage 
fully commensurate with such intelligence. 

This being the case, it may be of benefit for us to stop now 
and then and examine ourselves; to ask whether we are fulfill¬ 
ing the high calling that is ours. This is peculiarly a time and 
a situation when the general public looks to its bankers to study 
conditions and to express themselves clearly upon the status of 
present day problems. For instance, is it true—as some of 


58 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


our countrymen allege—that with the end of the great war our 
responsibilities as Americans in the world situation at once 
ceased? Or is it, on the other hand, true that, growing directly 
out of the war, a new set of problems arose that affect our own 
country in common with all others, and that for the solution of 
these new problems a responsibility almost as heavy as that 
undertaken in entering the war still rests upon us? These are, 
I take it, two insistent questions to which the American com¬ 
munity wants an answer today. When it has its answer it will 
be prepared to adopt the right course, whether or not such course 
seems to call temporarily for seeming sacrifice. 

Let us, then, see if we can find in our economic situation 
today any answer to these questions. Take agriculture: Our 
farmers are justly complaining that the price of wheat is below 
their cost of production. The comparatively low price is ap¬ 
parently due to the falling off of foreign markets for our wheat. 
In the year ending June 30, 1922, our wheat exports were 208 
million bushels; this last fiscal year 155 millions. Export of 
our other great breadstuff, corn, fell from 176 million bushels 
to 94 million bushels in the same twelve months ending June 
30, 1923. Why has there been this drop? Because of heavy 
crops, not only in Canada, Argentina and Australia, but in 
Europe as well. And why has the Continent had bumper crops 
this year? The answer is in part, because of the recovery from 
the devastation of the war, but also in large part—and this is 
the point to note—because our latest tariff laws put up such a 
barrier against foreign manufacturers that, speaking generally, 
the people abroad are unable to sell goods here to the extent 
that they otherwise might, and so, to establish as large credits 
as might be possible for the purchase of our grains. For years 
past, as the records show, the foreign markets have bought 
hundreds of millions of dollars of our wheat, paying for it in 
large part of course with goods. Now that, by our higher 
tariffs, we render that method of payment more difficult, we 
necessarily force foreign labor to turn in greater volume to 
agriculture. All over Europe labor has been flocking to the 
wheat fields. In one important way this is a very fine thing; 
for it means that Europe will have an abundance of food this 
winter. But, on the other hand, if we had not favored the idea 
of doing all the selling and none of the buying, our farmers and 
our manufacturers who are dependent for their prosperity upon 
the farmers’ demand, might have been better off. I am not 
entering into a tariff argument tonight. I am merely suggesting 
that it is “up to” you and me as bankers to study these causes 
and effects, and when we have arrived at a conclusion to act 
upon it. If I were a farmer I shouldn’t worry about our imports 
increasing; I should worry about agricultural exports decreasing, 
to try to find out why, and attempt to ascertain the remedy. 


59 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


We must not forget, too, the extent to which we pull down 
Europe’s purchasing power through the necessity of her pro¬ 
viding for us large annual sums for interest. For instance, just 
as one item we note that Great Britain’s remittance to our 
Treasury is to be $160,000,000 or more per year. 

Again, we find in our industrial communities a shortage of 
labor, due largely, of course, to our more stringent immigration 
laws, under which our immigration has been pulled down from 
an average of about 1,035,000 during the five years before the 
war to 523,000 during the last fiscal year. In levying very high 
tariffs on foreign goods our legislators explain that they are 
protecting our American labor from the competition of cheap 
foreign labor. Very good. Also, in putting up the bars against 
immigrant labor, our legislators are again trying to protect 
domestic labor. Does it now occur to you that in this double 
protection of our labor we are perhaps overdoing the job a bit? 
Certainly by making labor very scarce and wages very high we 
are putting up the costs heavily to our consumers. This then 
is another one of those questions that the community looks to 
you bankers to examine. And the more we examine this and 
kindred questions the more, I believe, we shall find that the 
idea of being a great American isolationist has little if anything 
to commend it. We can’t turn around without finding ourselves 
tripped up by some pesky situation lying thousands of miles 
distant from Chicago, Illinois. The Argentine farmer, for in¬ 
stance, can today sell his wheat abroad more cheaply than our 
farmer can. Why? Because Argentine farm labor is more 
plentiful and less expensive. Again, why? Because again our 
present laws have this tendency to bar out plentiful labor for 
our farmers. It is of course quite impossible to prove by figures 
that the falling off in our export of foodstuffs since the imposi¬ 
tion of the Fordney tariff has been due to its high tariff 
schedules; but certainly such tariff has a direct relation to the 
cost of manufactured goods that our farmers, with diminishing 
sales of their own products, are obliged to buy. We can only 
surmise the effect upon our exports of such tariff obstacles 
through our general knowledge of the way they are likely to 
operate. 

Let us drop agriculture for the moment and turn to mining 
—copper, for preference, because America is the greatest and 
cheapest producer of copper in the world. Early last winter, 
prior to the French occupation of the Ruhr, the foreign demand 
for our copper was good and was seemingly on the increase. 
Prices were strengthening and predictions of twenty-cent (per 
pound) copper were freely made. Such a firm market would 
have meant production on a greatly increased scale by American 
mines, with more returns to labor and better markets for mer¬ 
chants. But the Ruhr trouble ended all that. Not only did 


60 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


actual consumption of copper fall off in the Ruhr and in sur¬ 
rounding districts, but all over Continental Europe a certain 
natural timidity arose in manufacturing circles and their pur¬ 
chases of copper dropped. A recent Berlin dispatch says: “The 
average German monthly consumption of copper has fallen 
from 10,000 tons normally to 2,500 tons the last six months, and 
is now 1,500 tons.” An American copper authority states: “Oc¬ 
cupation of the Ruhr quite possibly has meant a difference 
between 20-cent and 14V6-cent copper” for American producers. 

Germany normally buys 90 per cent of her copper in the 
United States and of Germany’s total copper purchases one- 
fourth at least is consumed in the Ruhr. It is not, therefore, sur¬ 
prising that Germany’s copper purchases from us have fallen and 
for the year ending June 30, 1923, were 76,000,000 pounds less 
than for the preceding year. Likewise with lead (although the 
total of dollars involved is small) our sales to Germany dropped 
for the year from about 20,000,000 to about 7,000,000 pounds; 
and the price, be it noted, fell from 8.5 cents to 5.85 cents per 
pound. Our export sales of raw cotton, of which Germany in 
normal times took over one-quarter fell from 6,542,000 bales in 
the preceding twelve months, to about 5,066,000 bales in the 
twelve months ending June 30, 1923, although to be sure the 
total money received for this past year’s export was (owing to 
higher prices, resulting from a short crop) greater than in the 
preceding year. Not only did Germany’s purchases of cot¬ 
ton decline from 1,688,298 bales to 916,727 bales, or about 46 
per cent, but France bought less and so did England; the latter 
country took only 1,369,000 bales, as compared with 1,766,000 
bales. But, you may say, England was not occupied, nor its 
economic life disorganized by depreciated currency and un¬ 
balanced budgets. No, but England’s textile mills had felt a 
slackening in the demand for their cotton goods, particularly 
from those distant countries which had formerly been selling 
much to Germany. This instance excellently illustrates the fact 
that dislocation of trade in one important region has its repercus¬ 
sions in markets half way around the world. Our sales of 
wheat to Germany for the first seven months of this year fell 
to 1,015,000 bushels, as compared with 2,773,000 in the same 
period a year ago, and our corn exports fell to 5,491,000 bush¬ 
els as compared with 25,704,000 bushels a year ago. To be per¬ 
fectly fair we must note that our export sales of coal have in¬ 
creased because of the falling off in Ruhr tonnage; but such in¬ 
crease goes little way to offset the falling off in our sale of 
other commodities. 

What an outrage, you say, that this Ruhr difficulty should 
continue and hurt our great foreign market for copper, cotton 
and cereals. Why, you say, don’t those European countries set¬ 
tle their differences and give us back our proper export markets 


61 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


for grain and metals? Why indeed? What is the answer of the 
American isolationist to that? Does it occur to you that it is 
partly our own fault? The American people decided three or 
more years ago to withdraw from European situations as being 
none of their concern. Having withdrawn, we must not com¬ 
plain unduly of the consequences of our withdrawal. Many peo¬ 
ple, both here and abroad, believe that if we had decided dif¬ 
ferently and determined to do our share in solving those world¬ 
wide problems that inevitably grew out of the war that we 
help to win, the complexion of affairs European would be far 
different today and would be much more serene. 

But there is no use attempting to grind with the water that 
is past. The question that now confronts us is whether our stake 
in these world problems is sufficiently large to warrant our 
changing our policies somewhat and trying to help ourselves and 
others. Putting this question up to you, I am going to venture 
to differ radically with some of our recently returning Ameri¬ 
can travelers, who, arriving upon our blessed shores, proceed to 
thank God that we are not as other men are, and then go on 
to say that Europe is nothing but a seething cauldron of greed 
and hate, on the imminent verge of boiling over into active war. 
This, according to my belief, is happily untrue. I no more look 
to see war break out in Europe tomorrow than I expect to see 
fighting between United States and Canada. And saying that, 
I do not mean to minimize the vast seriousness of those problems 
which, lacking complete solution as yet, are, as I have pointed out, 
affecting our own prosperity at home. Europe is manifestly 
greatly troubled. It is vexed with great questions; it is still 
sore oppressed with the grief and losses of war. But despite 
the Ruhr and everything else that may look gloomy, it is not 
on the verge of new war. In fact, it is not lacking in instances 
of international forgiveness and grace. Naturally, I mention 
first the case of Austria. There is an extraordinary display of 
international comity and co-operation as contrasted with the 
animosity that some of our returning travelers describe. The 
Austrian people had been brave enough and strong enough under 
excellent counsel to straighten out their own situation, put a stop 
to inflation, and had, as Mr. Morgan recently said, proved them¬ 
selves as one of the nations “prepared to help themselves.” 
Thereupon Austria’s neighbors and late enemies held out the 
hand of friendship, joined in guaranteeing its political integrity, 
and then, as a crowning act, shared in a guarantee of the in¬ 
ternational loan that Austria has recently raised. Here were 
France, Italy, Great Britain, not long ago fighting against Aus¬ 
tria; and Czechoslovakia which had rebelled and broken away 
from the old Empire, turning square around with other coun¬ 
tries and lending every possible encouragement and assistance to 
the late foe. Would observers say that this extraordinary loan 
operation of Austria’s was an exhibition of jealousy or hate? 


62 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


Again, we see in the financial settlement with the Mexican 
Government an instance where the divergent interests of the in¬ 
vestors of many different countries, including certainly the 
United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Swit¬ 
zerland and Belgium, were reconciled under a plan fair to all 
of them and eminently fair to the Mexican Government. In the 
formation of this important plan looking to the readjustment 
of not less than $700,000,000 of debts, principal and interest, I 
observed on the part of all these foreign interests not a spirit 
of jealousy or selfishness but one full of conciliation, and give 
and take. 

Again, I hear people say: How terribly France hates Ger¬ 
many; how ruthlessly she is trying to dismember and trample 
Germany under foot. I could, however, detect no strong desire 
on the part of the people in France to dismember Germany. 
Whether or not France may have been ill-advised in her Ruhr 
policy; whether or not her course has been constructive to world 
peace; yet when I was in France last spring I could find no 
ground for its idea that France is trying to crush Germany or 
attempting to imperialize the Continent of Europe. I did note 
in France a great longing for permanent peace, a determination 
to be made secure against future German aggression, a de¬ 
cision that to the extent of her capacity Germany must repair 
the material damage wrought upon France. 

In this connection I have noted that some of my American 
friends recently in France have upon their return taken the 
French Government severely to task for alleged failure in its 
taxation policies, sometimes going so far as to state that the 
French people were avoiding taxation almost completely. Feel¬ 
ing sure from French Government reports that I had read that 
my friends had not accurately pictured the situation, I sent over 
and asked for up-to-date official figures on this question of 
French taxation. Here are some of the figures which may be 
accepted as authentic. I give them by way of comparison for the 
two years, 1913 (the last year before the war) and 1922. They 
show that in 1913 the French Government budgetary receipts in 
total were a little under 5 billion francs—to be exact 4,907,000,- 
000. For 1922 these same receipts were almost 24 billion—to be 
exact 23,854,000,000. This of course, means receipts exclusive 
of any receipts from Government loans. Now while the de¬ 
preciation of the franc must be taken into account, nevertheless 
it must be clear that there has been a most substantial increase 
in various forms of taxation. It is simple to say that the French 
people are not taxing themselves, but is it true? Twenty-four 
billion francs of Government revenue for 1922 would not in¬ 
dicate it. Those, mind you, are not revenue scheduled for col¬ 
lection but actual receipts. 


63 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


We are apt to say that in France the people pay no income 
worthy the name. Again, is that true? In 1913 France, like the 
United States prior to that year, had no income tax. And as a 
great bulk of the French population is made up of peasant farm¬ 
ers and small artisans, the income tax necessarily makes its way 
rather slowly, just as it does with us. Yet from nothing in 
1913 France in 1922 collected an income tax of 3,280,000,000 
francs. In the first six months this year they collected 2,064,000,- 
000 francs, or at the rate for the current year of 4,128,000,000, 
a substantial increase over 1922. I am not claiming that France 
is levying anything like as heavy an income tax as Great Britain 
is, where the income tax has been law for almost a century. 
But I am saying that the tale that France is practically evading 
all direct taxation is erroneous and unjust. 

On the whole it seemed to me that there was a gradually 
increasing spirit of tolerance in Europe, as a desire to get the 
other person's point of view. In saying this, I certainly admit 
myself to be an optimist. Yet I cannot but feel that, even with 
the great questions, forces are working gradually towards a 
settlement. It may have to be piece-meal, it is also sure to be 
slow in coming; but certainly there is no warrant for Ameri¬ 
cans to become discouraged or indignant over the situation, to 
be unduly critical of it, or to get the idea that we Americans 
have become moulded into a nobler clay than that from which 
our forebears of Great Britain and the Continent of Europe are 
fashioned. Modern nations are in the last analysis strikingly 
similar. No one of them is preponderantly selfish or over¬ 
whelmingly tolerant and generous. Each of them on the whole 
is probably trying to do the decent thing as it sees it. And these 
nations, just like men, frequently fall far short of their good 
intentions. They listen to bad counsel, their governments are 
often unduly influenced by temporary considerations. They 
make unwise and blundering moves. But that does not mean 
that we should attribute to them motives of greed and hate. It 
means, so far as Europe is concerned, that still burdened, as I 
have said, with the prepossessions of war, the judgments of its 
people quite naturally at times have gone awry; but probably 
no more so than ours would have gone under equal strain. The 
people abroad would welcome our co-operation in their counsels 
upon a larger scale than we have given it to them. But they 
are not asking for it. They can get along without it. They 
expect nothing from us that it is not manifestly to our own best 
interest to give. That is a fact that should be noted and em¬ 
phasized. 

Nor have I been able to see how, through reasonable partici¬ 
pation in those affairs of Europe that directly concern us, we 
are likely to get tripped up and “put in a hole," as some of our 
orators so fervidly apprehend. What does history show us that 


64 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


the European countries are all wicked and engaged, from time 
on end, in devilish plots to circumvent us; and that we are simp¬ 
ly a lot of guileless, gawky country folks, full of sweetness and 
light to be sure, but essentially a lot of innocents ? How did we 
get that way ? Do not the circumstances of history studied prove 
quite the opposite? Following the Declaration of Independence 
the course of the Revolutionary War would indicate that we 
had cultivated a singular knack of taking care of ourselves. 
When we negotiated the Treaty of Ghent after the War of 1812 
with Great Britain, we got everything that we had fought for, 
and that (at the Peace Conference) we negotiated for; the 
other side little or nothing. President Monroe utters a dictum 
to the effect that no European nation can “play in our back¬ 
yard,” that, we declare, stretches down to Cape Horn. And 
this excellent Monroe Doctrine of ours has grown to be a thing 
whereat the monarchs of the world bow down and tremble. 
Again at the end of the Civil War, we made upon Great Britain 
certain sweeping claims for damages alleged to have been in¬ 
flicted by the S. S. Alabama. International lawyers were 
sharply divided over the equities in the case, but we insisted 
upon the settlement of our claims, and settled they were. In 
1896, out of the clear sky, President Cleveland demanded that 
Great Britain cease from a certain course of procedure with 
reference to Venezuela, concerning whose unwarranted attitude 
towards certain British subjects there seemed to be no ques¬ 
tion. We demanded, I say, and Great Britain promptly with¬ 
drew. Who can justly say that we are a nation bursting with 
unsophistication and innocence, doomed to be the dupe of any 
European group that we happen to sit down at table with? 

May I finally, then, suggest that we forget once and for 
all this ridiculous notion that our friends across the water are not 
to be trusted? After some experience with them I have never 
seen evidence that they were trying to get the better of us. 
We in New York and you here in Chicago, and in those other 
neighboring cities that I see so worthily represented here to¬ 
night, may sometimes fail for the moment to understand one 
another on any given proposition. We or you, as the case may 
be, may have failed to get all facts and therefore may question 
one another’s judgment. But as to our underlying motives, as to 
our basic good faith, you can have no question any more than 
we can question yours. We are all Americans together working 
for a common end—the progress, prosperity and happiness of our 
common land. Is it then going too far to urge the view that, 
with the world indissolubly knit together as a whole in economic 
advance and well being, the time has come when we should re¬ 
gard ourselves as citizens of a wider civilization than one coun¬ 
try alone; that we should look upon these forebears of ours, who 
never cast their lot upon American soil, as still kin with us, as 
men to be trusted first of all; as men to believe in, to work 


65 


THE BANKER AND HIS FUNCTION TODAY 


with, to try to understand during the brief span of our short 
lives? And when we advocate a spirit of somewhat greater 
trustfulness, do not let us get the idea that one portion of the 
community, more than another, has special interest in such an at¬ 
titude. The whole American community, fortunately, is bound 
together in good fortune or in ill. What, in international rela¬ 
tionships, is to be the advantage of all ? 

To feed the poor, to succor those in sore distress, the 
American people are the most kind-hearted, the most generous 
in the world. Russia is starving and we send her grain by the 
million bushels. Austrian babies are dying and cargoes of 
American milk are dispatched. Famine comes down on China 
like a thief in the night, and we Americans are the ones who 
relieve it. Japan is devastated and there is from all over our 
country a spontaneous giving that is as remarkable in its spirit 
of charity and loving kindness as it is effective. 

But when it comes to the question of means to prevent the 
woe and waste and distress of war, then do we not seem to pause? 
We are ready to repair war’s ravages—to make great sacrifices— 
but to prevent them we seem to falter, because we distrust the 
the other nations. Suppose we think that point over a bit. 
Wouldn’t it be a paying proposition for us to co-operate a little 
more with our good counsel and great influence so as to help to 
prevent war, rather than to wait until it is too late and then pay 
heavily for the damage? 

How shall we set about such co-operation? It is not for me 
to point the way. Ways and means enough are to be found if 
the spirit prompts. Will it prompt us? Will it stir us into 
action, vital once more and helpful to ourselves and to the whole 
world besides? 


66 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL 
PHILOSOPHY 
IN 

ITS ECONOMIC AND 
SOCIAL ASPECTS 

by 

JULIUS H. BARNES 










































































































































































































































































































































































































The American Political Philosophy 

in 

Its Economic and Social Aspects 

by 

JULIUS H. BARNES 


An address given by the President of 
the United States Chamber of Com¬ 
merce. 


The three hundred years of American national history com¬ 
prise an era which may well challenge the attention of every 
student. 

A survey of the vast material progress of America in its 
short national history may well occasion the profoundest Amer¬ 
ican pride of accomplishment. 

A study of the social structure created on this base of 
material prosperity is one which should enlist the most sober 
attention. 

And again, if one thus finds the world's most striking crea¬ 
tion of material wealth and the world’s most encouraging ad¬ 
vance in living standards and social relations, then we have 
still to ascertain whether America is running true to the ideals 
on which this political structure was erected. 

A nation that in three hundred years of national history has 
created the vast aggregate of three hundred billion of national 
wealth, possesses vast potentiality of human service. When 
we find its nearest rival, the British Empire, with two thousand 
years of creative opportunity and with its present possessions 
circling the globe, attaining an aggregate wealth of only one 
hundred and seventy billion, the imagination is challenged, in¬ 
deed, to a search for the reason of America’s miracle develop¬ 
ment. 

We must recognize the favor of Nature in great natural 
resources, but so also, other countries have coal, and iron, and 
oil, and timber, and vast fertile fields, yet have not translated 
this natural wealth into human service and possession as has 


69 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


America. We owe something to fortunate geographical position, 
with its freedom from the burdens of military defense and the 
shock of recurrent war alarms. We owe more, perhaps, to the 
readiness of adaptability, peculiar to a newly-founded common¬ 
wealth, free from age-old habits and customs difficult to alter. 

But when we have weighed all these factors, we realize that 
there has been a potent stimulant beyond all these; a stimulant 
inherent in the political philosophy of America. 

This philosophy recognizes national progress and national 
attainment only as the sum of individual effort and accomplish¬ 
ment. This philosophy holds the prime function of constituted 
authority to be that of preserving fair play and equal oppor¬ 
tunity for every individual. This philosophy guarantees in¬ 
dividual security in the enjoyment of rewards, secured through 
the natural processes of service to society. This philosophy, 
in providing thus the field of their opportunity and security of 
reward, stimulates the individual to create his own niche in 
the social structure, by his own character and ability and de¬ 
voted effort. 

Under such a political philosophy the whole structure of 
society remains fluid; there is little tendency to harden into so¬ 
cial strata which encase the individual and stifle individual ef¬ 
fort. 


Influenced by this political philosophy, running parallel 
with it, and justified by its accomplishment under test, runs 
the American industrial ideal by which a premium is put on hu¬ 
man effort, through the enlargement of its production, by me¬ 
chanical aids. The typical American industrial theory of mass 
production, justified by industry itself only on the claim of 
economy of operation, has nevertheless proved, in its history, 
to be a most potent social service in advancing living standards. 

This premium which America places on man-power, as 
against the social and industrial methods of the Old World, is 
shown most strikingly in Agriculture. 

For instance, the criticism is often heard that the cereal 
yield per acre in America falls below the cereal yield per acre 
of Europe and indicates in some vague way an inferiority of 
American methods. On the contrary, should not the cereal yield 
be measured by the product per worker employed? When we 
recount that America’s cereal yield annually is twelve tons, per 
worker for the rest of the world, we visualize the disparity in 
conception of the value of human labor. 

Further, it may be accurately calculated that the wheat crop 
of America, today requires the equivalent of seven million 


70 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


working days, while if that crop were produced today on the 
methods used before the invention of the harvester and its suc¬ 
ceeding devices, it would require one hundred and thirty mil¬ 
lion total working days instead. This reduction, in three gen¬ 
erations, of human effort devoted to a single crop, releasing 
one hundred and twenty-three million working days to other 
production, typifies the constant progress of American industry. 
There are countries in the world, competitors with America in 
the production of cereals for sale in Europe’s import markets, 
still producing their cereals with the hand methods of three gen¬ 
erations ago. 

This particular phase of agricultural production helps to ex¬ 
plain why the streets of America’s western towns are lined with 
automobiles, while peasant labor still ekes out a bare existence 
in Argentina, and India, and Russia. 

The American farm is not usually thought of as a highly 
mechanized industry, yet this process of mechanical aids in the 
enlargement of human production has made vast strides in that 
basic industry. 

A generation ago, a single horse, with a single plow, guided 
by a single man, plowed a single acre in a single day. Today, the 
American tractor, with a single man, will plow eight to ten 
acres in a single day. 

A generation ago an industrious farmer could plant by hand 
two acres of corn each day. Today the check-rower, guided by 
the same single worker, will seed eighteen to twenty acres day 
by day. 

The reflection of these typical improvements into farm 
earnings rests not alone in the economy which follows fewer 
workers employed, but also in the freedom from weather inter¬ 
ference which more expeditious accomplishment of necessary 
farm work thus secures. 

The same recent years which have witnessed these im¬ 
provements, have also strengthened the security of farm market¬ 
ing opportunity. The hard-surfaced highway and the motor 
truck deliver farm produce at a lower cost and without the 
weather blockade of impassable roads, while the telegraph and 
telephone give the farmer instant and continuous contact with 
market conditions and market prices,—greatly to his own ad¬ 
vantage. 

These mechanical aids and their service to the farm, in 
twenty years, have helped advance the farm values of this coun¬ 
try from twenty billion to seventy-eight billion dollars, with 
all that means of the security of this great basic industry. 


71 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


This same peculiarly American philosophy runs through all 
the processes of industry. Typical instances may be cited thus: 

In thirty years, the production of pig iron per worker has 
risen from 267 tons annually, to 709 tons, or almost three-fold. 

Iron and steel have become the great frame-work for all 
modem industry, and the significance which follows this con¬ 
stantly increasing output, per worker enlisted, can hardly be over¬ 
rated, in its industrial service. 

In window-glass, less than twenty years ago a single 
invention, almost within the space of a single year in¬ 
creased the output, per worker, from fifty-five square feet per 
hour, to over three thousand square feet per hour. Here is a 
striking demonstration of the great expansion of output which 
the same number of workers could supply to the constantly en¬ 
larging building program of this growing country. 

The daily papers, although the number of pages and their 
size are constantly on the increase, show in ten years an in¬ 
crease in circulation, per employee, from 1,500 to 1,800 per day. 
In this economy rests the explanation of the continued two-cent 
paper, with its constant enlargement of service and wider range 
of contents. 

In bituminous coal, in thirty years the production per day, 
per worker, has risen from two and one-half tons to over four 
tons. Here rests a reason why this industry has expanded in 
one hundred years from the 50,000 tons which was the total an¬ 
nual production in 1820, to the 600 million tons which was the 
production of 1920. The imagination is staggered, indeed, to 
comprehend what 600 million tons annual increase means in the 
service of other industry and the production of articles of com¬ 
mon sense. 

In silk manufacture, in twenty years the pounds of raw 
silk used, per employee, have risen from 118 to 204. In this 
economy rests the explanation of the fact that silk, in gown and 
hose, has become the almost universal possession of American 
women. 

In gasoline production, in twenty years the annual output, 
per employee, has risen from 23,000 gallons, to 71,000 gallons. 
Here is a vast economy in the production of motive power, serv¬ 
ing that great agency of pleasure and great agency of earnings, 
the automobile. 

In automobile manufacturing, in the short space of ten 
years, the annual output, per worker, has risen from one and one- 
half cars, to over four. What this has meant to America in earn- 


72 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


ing power, and in social enjoyment, is beyond human ability to 
tabulate. What it has meant to economy of production, and thus 
in enlarging the circle of users, is stated most graphically in 
the fact that one single manufacturer in the United States pro¬ 
duces in four months more cars than have accumulated in twen¬ 
ty years in our nearest rival, Great Britain. 

These instances of enlargement of product per worker, are 
sufficient to show how maintained and increased production re¬ 
quires relatively fewer workers assigned to that production. 

Our industrial history makes it manifest that the work¬ 
ers thus released through the substitution of mechanical de¬ 
vices and labor-saving aids are not consigned to unemployment, 
with the social injury of idleness and lack of earnings and sav¬ 
ings, but are released instead to the constantly expanding old 
and new industries, and thus constantly swelling the production 
stream of articles of common use. 

It is manifest that the standard of living can only be ad¬ 
vanced and maintained by the creation of more and more ar¬ 
ticles for division among American homes. It is manifest that 
the American process of mass production, the constantly ex¬ 
panding output, of itself, directly tend to expand the average 
standard of possession. It is manifest that this increasing vol¬ 
ume must press into more and more homes, facilitated by the 
economies of costs which mass production itself secures, and 
aided in its distribution by more widely distributed buying power 
which enlarged competition for workers itself assures. 

It is, however, necessary and proper that, in material wealth, 
we should make sure that such wealth is fairly and equitably 
distributed, not by law and edict, with all the inequalities and 
injustices which follow such application of human judgment 
in authority, but that it be fairly and equitably distributed by 
the social system and the natural processes of trade in which 
individual superiority obtains its reward by the attraction of 
superior service. 

It is reassuring in this respect to trace the increase in 
capital savings of this country. It is reassuring to realize that, 
within the last ten years, savings accounts have increased from 
six billion to fourteen billion dollars in this country. It is 
reassuring that our National Bank deposits, in the same ten 
years, have increased from six billion to seventeen billion dollars. 

But we have besides these evidences of liquid wealth, a ready 
method of testing the distribution of wealth, of measuring the 
distribution of buying power in this country. For instance, we 
use this simple table: 


73 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


In twenty years between the census dates of 1900 and 1920, 
these comparisons occurred: 

Our population increased forty per cent. The vol¬ 
ume of food production increased thirty-eight per 
cent with the assurance of adequate home supplies 
which that suggests. 

The volume of mine production increased 128 per 
cent, showing that in metals and iron there was 
adequate assurance for the necessary supplies of 
manufacturing industry. 

And in the same twenty years the volume of fac¬ 
tory output rose ninety-five per cent or almost 
doubled. 

If you extend the increasing annual output rising between 
1900 and 1920 to almost double, you arrive at a rough calculation 
that the factory output of articles of common use had, in that 
twenty years, mounted to one thousand per cent above the con¬ 
tinued level of 1900 on which it started. If one proceeds to 
eliminate from this vast addition, those articles which may 
have been currently consumed, such as food and clothing, there 
is such a residue plainly left as to lead to the unavoidable con¬ 
viction, that in 1920, the average home of America possessed 
three times the articles of common use which the average home 
of 1900 possessed. You may test this roughly in your own ob¬ 
servation by recalling how recently have come into general use, 
bath rooms and plumbing, telephones and phonographs, electrical 
devices, and automobiles, and a thousand other things. 

Moreover, the very fact that such an enormous swelling in¬ 
crease of factory products could be made and could be marketed 
in America, is the most conclusive evidence that buying power 
was widely distributed in the hands of innumerable buyers. Such 
an increase of factory production would not have been possible 
of sale, were wealth concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few. 

But when thus we have demonstrated that, in America, we 
have made the world’s most astounding increase in national 
wealth and have established the world’s most advanced standard 
of living, there still remains the test as to whether we have lost 
anything of the inspirational value of the early ideals of this 
Republic. High ideals do not lend themselves to ready appraisal 
of their own value. They are not qualities which readily subject 
themselves to statistical record. They do manifest themselves, 
however, by certain evidence which indisputably base them¬ 
selves on high ideals and righteous impulse. 

In the educational world, for example, the increase of aver¬ 
age attendance of school age from 10,700,000, in 1900, to 16,200,- 


74 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


000 in 1920, is assurance that there is no slackening in the de¬ 
sire for intellectual training for our children. 

This increase in school attendance, exceeding fifty per cent, 
during the years when our population increased forty, shows an 
accelerated ratio of child training in the public school. 

Moreover, in the same twenty years, the per cent of chil¬ 
dren in high schools increased from three per cent to ten, and 
the total registration in public high schools increased by 325 
per cent. 

In college and university registration, there was an in¬ 
crease of 190 per cent. And in the value of public school proper¬ 
ty, an increase in the same twenty years, of 340 per cent. 

Here then, in the record of the development of educational 
opportunity and the appreciation of that opportunity, is no story 
of any slackening of educational aspiration, such as materialism 
alone would inevitably produce. 

America is certainly today realizing on its ten generations 
of public school training. In no other way can one account for 
the general ready adoption of the devices of science and inven¬ 
tion into industry, and the demonstration that the workers of 
America lend themselves most effectively to the operation of in¬ 
ventions. The whole record of expanded national wealth and in¬ 
creasing individual opportunity justifies the early conception of 
the Republic that a general public school education was the surest 
guaranty of equality of opportunity for all our children. 

Genius, to be sure, is not the product of education, alone, 
no matter how wisely planned; but to readily adopt in general 
use, the inventions of genius, requires a people whose mentality 
is trained and developed beyond the capacity of mere physical 
drudgery. The countries, for instance, of the Old World, whose 
social concepts accept as natural and proper the labor of women 
in coaling ships and carrying building hods, have a long and 
difficult task in any effort to utilize the service of science and 
invention in every day industry. 

The enlargement of earning power which in America fol¬ 
lowed the utilization of science and invention in its industrial pro¬ 
cesses, has manifested itself in many forms. The man of super¬ 
ior mentality, of superior directing or organizing genius, can 
make himself effective many-fold through the products of this 
era of invention. By the aid of the telegraph and telephone, the 
fast train and the automobile, by time and labor-saving devices of 
all kinds, with aid of standardization which has followed per¬ 
fected engineering and chemical exactness, this superior ability 


75 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


can direct at many places, factories of unprecedented size and 
output, where his father could have made effective equal ability 
in but a single place. 

The very processes of mass production, the standardization 
of tasks, has made a secure place of employment for men of low 
mentality, men who a generation ago would have been out of 
work half the time. Such men of inferior ability today, per¬ 
forming a simple task in the process of assembly of such products 
as the automobile, find themselves secure with the wages of a 
skilled mechanic. Between these two extremes, every grade of 
mentality has by the service of mechanical aids greatly enlarged 
its earning and saving potentiality. 

But the solid foundation on which American industry has 
developed, with this security of opportunity and employment, 
rests in the national ideal of universal education, and the in¬ 
dividual equipment which that secures. 

If in other fields than education we measure the average 
of American social ideals, we find the same encouragement. 
The total gifts and legacies recorded in support of philanthropies, 
In aid of the sick, the aged and the orphaned, in scientific re¬ 
search to lighten human suffering, show little evidence of in¬ 
dividual and national selfishness. 

The ethics of the business world and the standards of polit¬ 
ical morality are distinctly higher than those of a generation 
ago. 


If then, without narrow provincialism or national self-con¬ 
ceit, one is led to the conclusion that America has established a 
world leadership in material progress, in living standards, and 
an advance as well in those indefinable qualities that denote 
character, one must soberly examine the characteristics of our 
political philosophy under which this progress has been made. 

If one should attempt to define the American social and po¬ 
litical philosophy in a phrase, it might be described as the 
Philosophy of Fair Play. America clearly rebels against the 
Old World concept that human authority may properly rate, in 
dollars, and safely restrict in reward, the value of such impon¬ 
derable qualities as human genius. The value to living standards 
of Edison and the electric lamp can not be gauged safely by les¬ 
ser intellects, but only by the free expression of Society, which 
evidences its appreciation by actual purchase and use. America 
clearly begrudges no reward for superior service to society, 
through invention, or production, or organization, or distribu¬ 
tion, so, that it be clearly a reward obtained in free competition 
and bestowed because society has rated such service as better 


76 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


than a competitor has been able to perform. That this manifest 
the public temper is shown by the fact that there is today, no 
public resentment at the recent statement that a single indi¬ 
vidual in America in twenty years has acquired a personal for¬ 
tune of six hundred million dollars, selling an article of universal 
appeal to five million users. 

America clearly recognizes that it is a violation of this fair 
play when combinations of superior wealth and power are made, 
as against the public. 

It is, therefore, in the very preservation of the national 
philosophy of fair play that the theory of Government regula¬ 
tion has been evolved. This regulation, which controls prac¬ 
tices and affects earnings, must, in the national self-interest, be 
restrained, and wise, and generous. It must attract the enlist¬ 
ment of capital, and attract the services of superior individual 
ability, in order that regulated industry may march in step with 
private industry in the development of economies and of serv¬ 
ice. In Europe there was no half-way station between private 
ownership and ownership by the State, of public utilities. Clos¬ 
ing their eyes to the manifest disability which must follow the 
State as an employer of individuals whose votes do, of them¬ 
selves affect the State, there has been a long period of Govern¬ 
ment experimentation which has clearly demonstrated the failure 
of this method. 

It is of striking significance to students of political philos¬ 
ophy, and of striking encouragement to the American individ¬ 
ualism philosophy instead, that Europe, based on actual 
experience, is developing a general repudiation of the theory of 
State socialism. 

Italy, for many years, has practised Government owner¬ 
ship of telephone and telegraph, and express and railroads. For 
many years, the most ardent voice in favor of Government 
ownership and Government operation is the voice, that, today, 
driven by the very logic of actual demonstration, condemns the 
inefficiency of State ventures into the domain of industry, and 
leads the National effort for a return to the advantages of private 
initiative, in Italian industry. 

In March last, opening the session of the International 
Chamber of Commerce, Premier Mussolini, with all these 
spectacular backgrounds of former personal socialistic opinions, 
and the conversion from those theories, used these striking 
words: 


It is my conviction that the State must re¬ 
nounce its economic functions especially those of 
monopolistic character for which it can not pro- 

77 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


vide. It is my conviction that a Government which 
wants quickly to uplift its own people from the 
after war crisis, must give free play to private 
enterprise and forego any measure of State control 
or State paternalism, which may perhaps satisfy 
the demagogy of the Left, but, as shown by expe¬ 
rience, will in the long run turn out to be abso¬ 
lutely fatal both to the interests and the economic 
development of a country. 

* * * 

I do not believe that that complex of forces 
which in industry, agriculture, commerce, banking 
and transport, may be called with the name of 
capitalism, is about to end, as for a length of time 
it was thought it would by several thinkers of the 
social extremism. One of the greatest historical 
experiences which has unfolded itself under our 
own eyes has clearly demonstrated that all sys¬ 
tems of associated economy which avoid free initia¬ 
tive and individual impulse, fail more or less 
piteously in a short lapse of time. 


These are significant words, indeed, and worthy of sober 
consideration. 


So, elsewhere in Europe, recent years have seen, tried in 
actual practice, social and political theories that had been 
preached in the abstract for generations. 

In Russia, the actual trial of communism, ignoring the 
individual impulse, all but destroyed the whole economic struc¬ 
ture of a great country, and brought down the living standards 
of one hundred and fifty millions to the barest margin above 
utter barbarism. A land of vast stretches of fertile soil, pro¬ 
ducing in former days the greatest export surplus of grain 
of any single country in the world saw even its simple agricul¬ 
tural production shrink under the stifling of individual impulse 
and incentive, until Famine itself was held back only by the 
aid of individualistic America. A country possessed of forests, 
and iron and coal, and with idle labor appealing for employment, 
saw its production of essential implements for its basic industry 
of Agriculture, shrink to the official admission during the Genoa 
Conference, that its production of agricultural implements had 
declined to eleven per cent, of pre-war; its production of plows 
to six per cent, of pre-war; and the production of iron to two 
per cent, of pre-war. From this almost utter prostration this 
country has been quickened into the faint semblance of economic 
life by the partial restoration of a limited area in which the 
primal human impulse to produce and to save has been allowed 
some promise of reward. 

Austria has run the gamut of easy social theories. 


78 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


State services, such as railroads, were overloaded with 
unnecessary dependents; charges for service bore no relation 
to the cost of providing that service; deficits thus created were 
liquidated by issuance of paper promises to pay, which in the 
process of their depreciation destroyed the savings of the thrifty 
of former generations. The practical result was, to put a 
premium on the spend-thrift, and the reckless, and to make 
Austria, for three years, the great international mendicant. 

Some months ago, out of the desperation of utter hopeless¬ 
ness, this socialist republic appealed to be saved against itself. 
Its Parliament abdicated its right of legislative interference for 
a definite period of two years. Paper currency emission was 
discontinued, and the paper tokens, in which are written the 
evidence of saving and on whose denomination the contracts 
of industry must be based, stabilized. Immediately there was 
disclosed a margin of earning and saving power which was, up 
to that time, unsuspected. Charges for public services are being 
readjusted to something of the cost of necessary support. The 
State railways are in process of partial return to private opera¬ 
tion, in the hope of enlisting the superior directing ability which 
can not function under the stifling methods of political control. 
Industry is reviving, savings are increasing, the confidence of 
the world is restored, and Austria is becoming a self-respecting 
and self-supporting entity. 

In the Old World, and in America, the frontier of relations 
between Government and industry will be a shifting one, subject 
to relocation by the process of trial and error. In the determina¬ 
tion of the line of just and wise demarcation these social experi¬ 
ments in Europe have great value, for the guidance of the judg¬ 
ment of the world. So, also, of even greater value, is the demon¬ 
stration of service and accomplishment in America, which 
sturdily resisted the influence of Old World experimentation, and 
never really departed from its traditional adherence to American 
individualism. 

It is plainly apparent that, in political philosophy, and in 
the relation of Government to Industry, and to its individual 
citizens, America will have something of great value to con¬ 
tribute, even as it has done in the processes of industry, and 
in the demonstration of the social and human service of these 
typically American theories. We do so much need in America 
students and teachers who can visualize the warm and vital 
human meaning which runs through the abstract statistics and 
indexes of industry. We need students and teachers who can 
translate trade indexes into their full human significance. There 
is so much to enlist the enthusiasm and the idealism of students 
and teachers in this American philosophy of fair play! It seems 
a philosophy of so much sturdier growth, so much more of 


79 


THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 


common fairness, so much more of inspirational value, than the 
soft and easy philosophy of the care of the State for the in¬ 
dividual ! It is in no sense reactionary or conservative, because 
its very essence is the liberalism which refuses favor, and scorns 
advantage, asking only the equality of opportunity. 


80 


WASTE IN INDUSTRY 


by 

HERBERT C. HOOVER 







' 













Waste in Industry 

By 

Herbert C. Hoover 


An address given before National 
Conference of Social Work. 


I have been asked to speak upon some of the waste of human 
effort in industry. The subject in full would require much more 
exhaustive treatment than this occasion permits. The waste of 
intermittent employment, of seasonal unemployment, of labor 
turnover in strikes and lockouts, tides of unemployment due to 
the business cycle, the wastes due to wrong adjustment of the 
hours of labor, the wastes from the fulling of the mind due to 
repetitive work, and above all, the waste due to the wrongs of 
child labor, each of them would comprise sufficient subject of a 
dozen addresses. 

There are one or two points on which I would like to touch 
with some emphasis. One of them is this problem of child labor, 
which now again forces itself into the field of emergent action. 
Every well-wisher of children must feel deeply the failure of the 
last effort in national prevention of child labor. A study of the 
situation as it stands will show that a majority of states have 
forward-looking and effective laws in child protection; that some 
others have enacted legislation that at least goes part way. But 
there is a minority that are still in the Middle Age in their atti¬ 
tude toward childhood. 

Child labor in these backward states is competitively unfair 
to industry in the states that have responded to the moral and 
social ideals of our people. But far beyond this, the moral and 
economic results of debilitated, illiterate, and untrained manhood 
and womanhood that must spring from these cesspools where 
child labor is encouraged and is legitimate, in fact the entire 
nation. 

All of us would agree in the wish that the sense of local gov¬ 
ernment and local responsibility in our country were such that 
each and every state would advance itself to the forefront of 
progress in this so vital a question. It would be far better for 
the future of the Republic if this were true, for I know of nothing 
more disheartening than the impulse and justification given to 
the centralization of government by continuous failure of local 


83 


WASTE IN INDUSTRY 


government in matters that affect the nation as a whole. With 
the growing population and growing complexity of our industrial 
and social life, the constant resort to federal control for solution 
of difficulties will yet undermine the very basis of social progress 
by the destruction of the sense of local responsibility. 

However, if it is impossible to secure this necessary safe¬ 
guard to our people by local government, I am one of those who 
consider the losses in our sense of local responsibility are less 
than the losses to the nation as a whole and if all else fails I 
stand for amendment to the federal Constitution that will give 
the necessary power and authority to compel action in those 
states which are negligent of their responsibilities. Let us have 
our eyes open to the fact, however, that the necessity for so 
doing is a definite step in undermining the autonomy of local 
government, and the sacrifice in this autonomy that a few states 
are imposing on all the whole will only open the gates of en¬ 
croachment through the Constitution every time some local 
social cesspool must be drained. It is with this thought in mind 
that I should like to suggest to you that a final effort be made 
to bring all states into line to abolish child labor. If that cannot 
be accomplished quickly, I regretfully join with those in favor of 
federal action. 

Clearly, if economic waste is reprehensible waste of child 
labor whether viewed economically or in terms of common and 
universal betterment is a blight that in its measure is more 
deplorable than war. 

I have no need to argue the case and cause of childhood, but 
it may be worth recounting that our system of individualism 
can only stand if we can make effective the supreme ideal of 
America. This ideal is that there shall be an equality of op¬ 
portunity for every citizen to reach that position in the com¬ 
munity to which his intelligence, abilities, character, and ambi¬ 
tion entitle him. I am a strong believer in this progressive 
individualism as the only road to economic, social, and spiritual 
safety and to human progress. Without this tempering ideal 
that America has evolved, individualism will not stand. There 
is no equality of opportunity where children are allowed by law 
and compelled by parents to labor during the years they should 
receive instruction; there is no equality of opportunity unless 
this instruction is made compulsory by the state. There is no 
equality of opportunity for children whose parents are not re¬ 
strained by law from exploiting them, and compelled to give 
them participation in the beneficent privileges that the state 
provides for them. 

Lest some would think because of the deep feeling of many 
of us upon this subject that these statements can be recited as 
evidence of the failure of America, let me also add: Out of some 


84 


WASTE IN INDUSTRY 


26,000,000 children between five and sixteen years of age in 
America the use of child labor so far as it retards proper develop¬ 
ment and education of children, probably affects less than 300,- 
000 children. This number is 300,000 below the ideals of Ameri¬ 
ca, but no other nation can show so small a proportion. 

Another of the problems in which there is much discussion 
is that of the hours of labor. In any discussion of this subject, 
we must embrace three points of view—the engineer’s, the econ¬ 
omist’s, and the social student’s. Both the engineer and the 
economist must insist on the maximum productivity. For the 
maximum production is the only foundation on which we can 
obtain more generally high standards of living. The argument 
is simple enough, for the more cheaply commodities can be pro¬ 
duced the larger are the number of people who can participate in 
them. 

The engineer, however, does not advocate unlimited hours: 
he does not obtain the maximum production when fatigue and 
deterioration in product begin to supervene. His view of human 
fatigue and of human deterioration leads directly to the restric¬ 
tion of hours to that number that will permit of best perform¬ 
ances and efficiency in the tasks in the long view. The engineer 
takes more than the immediate view of a day’s work, for there are 
some tasks of repetitive character which tend to intellectual and 
moral deterioration in the long run. It is one of the first prob¬ 
lems in front of the engineer to find such a diversion and stimula¬ 
tion to intellectual interests either directly in the task itself or 
indirectly in some association with it that will prevent not only 
fatigue but deterioration itself. While this problem is of high 
importance, I am not one of those that thinks that the fabric 
of the nation is about to collapse because we have developed 
mechanical tools for mass production, for the very minor malign 
results that have accompanied these inventions can be overcome. 
The length of hours of labor in the vision of the engineer will 
vary with every task. There are many tasks in which four hours 
is too long for continuous action. There are other tasks such as 
that of the caretaker of an empty house where twenty-four 
hours, six days in a week, would not be absurd from a physical 
point of view. 

The social student must approach the question from another 
and equally vital point of view, and that is family life, citizen¬ 
ship, and opportunity for recreation and intellectual improve¬ 
ment. These limitations are mandatory, and whatever the right 
hours may be as between these vital social limitations and the 
limitations imposed by the view of productivity, it is a certainty 
that the twelve-hour day or seven-day week cannot be enter¬ 
tained by any well-thinking social student. We have set up as a 
matter of public sentiment eight hours as an approximate stand¬ 
ard, yet no empirical number can be right. The engineer is the 


85 


WASTE IN INDUSTRY 


proponent of scientific study into the hours in which maximum 
productivity can be obtained and maintained. We need these 
studies by the engineer and social student in every industry, for 
hours too short are an injury to the rest of us in that they im¬ 
pose lower standards of living upon us; and hours too long are 
an injury to the individual and through him to the race. 

The President recently called a meeting of the leading steel 
manufacturers of the country and made an appeal to them in the 
name of social progress that they should take steps to abolish the 
twelve-hour day which now remains in respect to about 15 or 
20 per cent of the employees in that industry. For competitive 
reasons this abolishment needs to be brought about coincidently 
in the whole industry and the President’s action gave this op¬ 
portunity for united action. This request was based solely upon 
social grounds and indeed the social necessity is sufficient justifi¬ 
cation for this or any other step. Many employers are in favor 
of it and I trust that this great step will be quickly brought 
about. I do not believe it is possible to develop proper citizenship 
or proper family life, whether men work twelve hours by neces¬ 
sity or by preference. And I think you will agree with me that 
90 per cent of the public opinion of the entire country is solidly 
behind the President in his expression that we have now reached 
a stage of social conceptions wherein this anachronism should 
be abandoned. 

The industrial losses through unemployment and intermit¬ 
tent employment constitute a problem that is not to be solved 
by any formula. It must be attacked in detail. There are phases 
of our seasonal employment that no doubt could be mitigated by 
more co-operation in industry. There is one feature now being 
given consideration in many directions that I believe is of in¬ 
terest and promises ultimate results, and that is the accurate 
study by civic bodies of the character of the particular indus¬ 
tries in any particular center in the endeavor to discover oppor¬ 
tunity for integrating industries to intermesh with each other in 
reduction of seasonal idleness. Every city in the United States 
would be well advised in the interest of its own development to 
consider its industries with view to a determination of what in¬ 
dustries might be introduced that would take up the slack in 
seasonal employment of their already existing establishments. 

One of the tremendous wastes through unemployment is 
due to the fluctuation of the business cycle. We are constantly 
reminded by some of the economists and business men that 
this is inevitable, that there is an ebb and flow in the demand 
for commodities and services that cannot from the nature of 
things be regulated. I have great doubts whether there is a 
real foundation for this view. Thirty years ago our business 
community considered that a cyclical financial panic was inevita¬ 
ble. We know now that we have cured it through a Federal Re- 


86 


WASTE IN INDUSTRY 


serve banking system. We know also that many of our indus¬ 
tries are themselves finding methods for insuring more con¬ 
tinuous operation of their plants during these ebbs and flows of 
demand. At the present moment a committee of important 
business men and economists, with the co-operation of the De¬ 
partment of Commerce, are engaged in a systematic study of 
this problem. An analysis of the business cycle quickly brings 
one to the separation of our production of consumable goods 
from the construction of our plant and equipment, that is, our 
houses, our public utilities, our public improvements, our public 
work. The ebb and flow of demand for consumable goods prob¬ 
ably in the main may be uncontrollable. There is more hope 
that we could direct certain branches of our construction and 
equipment, such as public works, the greater utilities, in such 
a fashion that we could provide the finances and then delay 
construction until periods of depression, and thereby shift our 
labor from consumable goods to plant and equipment in these 
periods. It would clip the top from booms and the depression 
from slumps. 

It has been calculated that we could secure a delay of such 
equipment to the amount of one-tenth during the period of 
normal business in the great utilities and construction works 
under the control of the government; that it would almost plane 
out the depression in employment. I am confident that there 
is a solution somewhere, and its working out will be one of the 
greatest blessings yet given to our economic system—both to 
the employer and the employee. And there is nothing that would 
contribute so much to the contentment and the advancement of 
our people as greater assurance to the individual of a reasonable 
economic security to remove the fear of total family disaster 
through the loss of a job to those who wish to work. 


87 



. * 








REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


by 


PAUL M. WARBURG 















Rehabilitation of Europe 

By 

Paul M. Warburg 


Address given before the Institute of 
Politics, Williams College, by a for¬ 
mer member of the Federal Reserve 
Board, July 31, 1922. 


It is a great privilege to be called upon to preside over a 
round table discussion by these earnest and distinguished ex¬ 
perts and students. All honors, however, carry with them a 
corresponding measure of responsibilities, and, therefore, he 
who sits in this chair faces a trying task, all the more perplexing 
because the topic to be considered, “The Rehabilitation of 
Europe,” opens up a field as wide as the African deserts and as 
full of impasses, thorns, swamps, and snakes as the tropical 
woods of South America. I am frank to admit that in these 
circumstances I hesitate a good deal before accepting to act as 
one of the guides of this expedition, and, indeed, I would not 
have ventured to serve at all had I not been convinced that 
most of its members did not really require a leader, and that 
much rather they might be relied upon to help him to pilot the 
party on its slippery path. It is the duty of the leaders, how¬ 
ever, to fix the compass and chart the map, and this they have 
tried to accomplish in a preliminary meeting. 

In order to clarify the problem, they have first asked them¬ 
selves the question: What are we to understand by the term, 
“rehabilitation,” and what by the term, “Europe” ? 

To begin with the second question. 

We believe it will be well for the purpose of our discussion 
to agree upon having the term “Europe” mean: Europe minus 
Russia. The Russian problem is unfortunately so hopelessly 
involved that, if we wish to grapple with it at all, we might best 
attack it as a separate, independent topic at the end of our 
program, except where indirectly it touches our general topic 
or particular phases. No matter how deeply we may regret it, 
we cannot escape the conclusion that steps towards the rehabili¬ 
tation of the rest of Europe cannot wait for Russia’s return to 
a condition of reasonable normalcy, or anything approaching it. 

It is obvious that as long as Russia remains in a state of 


91 


REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


prostration the rehabilitation of the rest of Europe, and indeed 
of the world, will remain incomplete. And that brings us back 
to the first question, what, for the purpose of our discussion, 
we should understand by the term, “rehabilitation.” It cannot 
mean Europe’s complete return to social, economic or financial 
conditions such as prevailed before the war. To my mind we 
must be satisfied with a much more modest interpretation. I 
think we come nearer to defining our problem if we express it 
by the question: “How can the further decomposition of Europe 
be arrested?” In other words, how can Europe secure the first 
stages of political, social, economic and financial stability? 

How far ultimately “rehabilitation” will progress, and how 
fast it will proceed, is a later consideration. Our immediate 
concern must be, how can we reach a truly solid foundation and 
escape the quicksands which threaten to swallow us at present. 

The problem of “rehabilitation,” as thus defined, must be 
considered from the two aspects of results to be secured. 

First, the measures that in themselves and independently 
are helpful and constructive, and 

Second, by measures constructive only in that they destroy, 
or counteract, the effects of destructive and harmful actions 
committed in the past or still at work. Frequently, during the 
earliest discussions of the problem, it was not recognized clearly 
enough that the purely constructive work in its most important 
phases could not be undertaken until some of the most pernicious 
influences of destructive work had been eliminated. Thus, ever 
since the conclusion of the Peace of Versailles, the public at 
large has been led to believe that financial stabilization—so indis¬ 
pensable for the return of sound economic conditions—could 
and should be brought about by huge international banks regu¬ 
lating exchanges, or by issuing a world currency, or by large 
international loans, and that the United States, in particular, 
should play a decisive part in this regard. Ambitious plans 
towards these ends were launched from time to time by political 
and financial leaders and stimulated the people’s expectations at 
home and abroad. All the keener was their disappointment and 
resentment when, one after another, these schemes failed to 
materialize. 

It is better understood today that internal organic troubles 
must be cured before external remedies can be applied with 
success, in other words, that loans for purposes of stabilization 
can neither be placed on a comprehensive scale, nor that they 
can serve any permanently constructive purpose, unless at the 
same time the underlying conditions are straightened out. No 
sane architect would put a new roof upon a building without 


92 


REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


first underpinning a thoroughly rotten foundation. He would 
be all the more reluctant to tackle the job in case where its 
owners frankly objected to seeing the crumbling houses to 
realize that they themselves were bound to become submerged 
in the general wreckage if the adjoining party walls were not 
prevented from caving in. It is hard to see how even the most 
unwilling minds can escape the conclusion that economic and 
social rehabilitation in Europe are predicated upon the re-estab¬ 
lishment of orderly and more normal internal and international 
political relations, and upon the removal of some of the most 
flagrant artificial impediments that now block the way. 

While, with its many ramifications, the questions reserved 
for our round table discussions thus had the advantage of open¬ 
ing up an almost unlimited range of interesting topics, it pre¬ 
sents at the same time the distinct disadvantage of raising a 
problem so closely interlocked that views, conclusions and sug¬ 
gestions concerning each phase can only be developed upon 
certain preliminary assumptions. And these assumptions, in 
many cases, will again be of a character that will relegate us to 
the modest role of expressing fond hopes and wishes, while the 
ultimate date would rest helplessly in the hands of all too power¬ 
ful or all too powerless politicians. But that must not discourage 
us. Even though we know, that since 1919, conferences of 
experts of the highest authority have over and again discussed 
our problem and, with insignificant variations have always 
reached the same general conclusions without being able to arrest 
the continuous progress of Europe’s decomposition, it is true 
none the less that under the growing pressure of inevitable 
economic consequences, the breach is constantly widening 
through which truth and reason will enter. We must not be 
reluctant, therefore, in our discussions to restate things already 
convincingly expressed by others. Reiteration of facts, presented 
courageously and without bias, is, indeed, a service of the great¬ 
est importance at this juncture. Perhaps it may be well for 
us in this regard to remember a paragraph written by Maynard 
Keynes in his preface to Section Four of his “Reconstruction 
in Europe” series, published in the Manchester “Guardian.” 
He says: 

“Whilst no individual can much affect events which are the 
resultant of innumerable particulars, nevertheless the totality 
of individual wills, if they can be set moving rightly, can repair 
the injury which another totality of wills, wrongly directed, 
have done.” 

There never was a time when the world was faced with 
graver political, social, economic, financial and moral issues, than 
at the present. There never was a time when clear and unafraid 
thinking was more needed than now, when public opinion gov- 


93 


REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


erned the fate of peoples more completely than it does today, 
and when it was more thoroughly misguided and misinformed. 

There never was a time when public men were offered a 
greater opportunity to serve their countries by speaking the 
truth, or when more brazenly and more cowardly they whispered 
the truth in private, while from the housetops and soap boxes 
they told the stories that would get them votes and keep them 
in their political jobs. 

Democracy, for whose victory millions bled and died, is 
being stabbed in the back by selfish political leaders; it can be 
saved only by enlightened and courageous public opinion. 

I trust I may count on your indulgence for this seeming 
digression; but to me these thoughts are the very essence of 
the work of these round-table conferences. What we say in the 
confines of this room is not meant to serve as headlines for the 
papers; but by a frank and unbiased discussion we hope to 
compare, clarify and broaden our views, and then—each in his 
way—with all the greater strength to carry our conviction into 
the hearts and minds of others. Our distinguished guest, Mr. 
Lionel Curtis, upon landing in the United States, said recently: 
“In the long run the foreign policy of any nation is determined 
by public opinion. In so far as public opinion is sound, the 
resulting policy will be right; in so far as public opinion is 
wrong, the resulting policy will be wrong.” 

No truer, no timelier words could have been said, not only 
to the people of Europe, but also to our own. 

If the present attitude of the people of United States with 
regard to Europe should be permitted to become the closing 
chapter of the great part we played in the World War, it would 
be a grave injustice to our country. 

Every war, that can be won only by the united will and 
unreserved devotion of a nation must end in defeat unless it 
arouses the passions and emotions of the people, and at the same 
time stuns the logic of cool deliberation. America rose to the 
call with a burst of patriotism and idealism that astonished 
the world. The war has been over now for almost four years; 
America’s passions and emotions have died down, but, strange 
to say, she has not yet been able to shake off the condition of 
intellectual drowsiness into which she had been stunned. From 
a superlative moral effort we seem to have sunk into a subnormal 
condition. The Peace of Versailles and the subsequent events 
were a deep and shocking disappointment to the people of the 
United States. They appear now to be afraid lest another burst 
of idealism might lead them once more into new sacrifices and 


94 


REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


fresh disillusions. In self-protection we are surrounding our¬ 
selves with a wall and moat of cynicism and selfish materialism, 
which are to guard us against being drawn into the snares of 
European diplomats, or into the battles of her implacable 
militarists, with our shield and sword besmirched and deadened 
by party politics. But plain reasoning would tell us that neither 
morally nor materially can we hope to find a satisfactory solu¬ 
tion in such a state of mind. We must arouse ourselves from 
our present conditions of intellectual coma if we wish to do 
justice to our self-respect and self-interest. If plain logic tells 
us that in order to prosper the United States needs reasonable 
stability in the rest of the world; if, as every child knows, trade 
means exchange of goods, how do we expect to see our world 
commerce restored, even though the ultimate result of 
such a policy would needs be further to weaken the ability 
of other nations to settle with us? Can thinking people fool 
themselves into the belief that billions of dollars of international 
debts can be paid without inquiring by what means, and with 
what consequences, these settlements could be effected? Can 
any sane person believe that the standards of living in Europe 
can sink to deplorably low levels without affecting our own 
industries or standards? Or, that in such circumstances, we 
could build and maintain a Chinese wall that would keep out 
a tidal wave of European goods or, failing that, ward off the 
goods that we could no longer export to them. 

It is true that we are helpless to help Europe until a modus 
vivendi has been found between France and Germany; that is, 
until the indemnity question has been settled on a truly prac¬ 
ticable basis. Unless that settlement can be brought about 
Europe is doomed beyond hope and repair. But I cling to the 
belief that the day is near when France will recede from her 
present suicidal attitude of wanting the milk of the cow and her 
meat at the same time. When that day comes our confidence in 
the future of Europe will begin to return, and with that our 
willingness to change our attitude of aloofness into one of 
sympathetic co-operation. In such circumstances, it would then 
seem inconceivable that America could continue to insist on 
claiming payment for war debts from such of our Allies as 
plainly could not repay us without disastrous consequences to 
themselves and to other nations, including ourselves, as well. 
That public opinion in the United States at present is not pre¬ 
pared for so far reaching a concession is no doubt true; but if 
France showed the proper spirit of enlightened generosity I am 
profoundly convinced that our country, properly guided, would 
ultimately respond in the same spirit. I believe, however, that 
as in the case of naval disarmament, we shall first have to reach 
an understanding with England about the funding and ultimate 
payment of her debt to us. As long as we tie the English debt, 
which our people may hesitate to forego, to those of our other 


95 


REHABILITATION OF EUROPE 


Allies, whose debts under certain conditions clearly should be 
forgiven, no headway can be made. 

When once the fundamental questions are properly disposed 
of, the subsequent economic and financial operations, bewildering 
as they may seem today, will solve themselves one by one in 
comparatively simple and natural ways, and it will not be diffi¬ 
cult to play our part effectively and wholeheartedly in them, 
provided always that public opinion will demand it, and provided 
also that relief may not come too late. 

There remains not much time to be wasted, indeed, the ava¬ 
lanche is gaining speed at so terrific a rate that it is doubtful 
today whether it can be arrested in its fateful plunge. 


96 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


by 

JAMES M. BECK 








































































































































































































































































































































































































































































What Is Progress? 


By 

James M. Beck 


An address by the Solicitor-General 
of the United States given before the 
Pennsylvania Society of New York, 
December, 1923. 


Let us recall as best we can, the 25th day of April, 1899, 
when this Society was born. It was a very different world then 
from that in which we are now living. The space-annihilating 
telephone was but beginning to extend its vast antennae through¬ 
out the land, and the motor car, which has had so fateful effect 
upon human life and character, was still the plaything of a few. 
The marvels of the radio were undreamed of possibilities. The 
possibility of an airplane was regarded as much as myth as the 
flight of Icarus through the skies. No one then dreamed that 
we would gather out of the skies a mixed jargon of human song 
and speech, and no one ever dreamed of the final blasphemy of 
streaking with dirty smoke the azure of God’s heaven in order 
to advertise a cigarette. 

Has man made any true progress in this last quarter of a 
century? Before the World War he who asked such a question 
would have raised a doubt as to his sanity, and yet the very word 
“progress” was almost unknown prior to the 19th century, the 
word “civilization” is purely its creation, and thoughtful men 
would differ widely as to its true definition. Prior to the World 
War, the dominant note of human thought was one of unbounded 
optimism, but when the whole top of the world blew off in 1914 
and man pulled himself out of the most gigantic wreckage in 
the world’s history, thoughtful men of our time first began to 
wonder whether progress could be measured in terms of thermo¬ 
dynamics. 

Nor can the progress of mankind be measured merely by 
the greater diffusion of human comforts and the accretion of 
material wealth. Was it not well said by old Dr. Goldsmith: 

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.” 


99 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


The only test of progress or retrogression is the growth or 
decay of the average man. He is no wiser if he can talk by the 
radio a thousand miles instead of a hundred feet unless he has 
something to say by the radio or the telephone which is better 
worth saying. Science has given us sound amplifiers, but unfor¬ 
tunately they cannot amplify thought. Better a Hamlet printed 
on a hand press than some banalities of today upon a rotary. 
Nor does man progress when he travels four miles a minute 
through the skies, and thus outflies the eagle, unless he travels 
to better purpose than did our forebears, when it required at 
least two days to journey from New York to Philadelphia. 

But how can the growth or deterioration, as the case may 
be, of the average man be determined? One criterion, it seems 
to me, is the change for better or worse of the great primitive 
institutions of man, like the church, the school, the theatre, and, 
since Gutenberg, the press. Of these, the most significant, pos¬ 
sibly, is the press, for it can be truly said of the newspaper, as 
Shakespeare said of the theatre, the newspaper of his day: 

“They are the abstract and brief chroniclers of the time; 
after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their 
ill report while you live.” 

The press seems to be the mirror in which mankind can view 
itself in order to determine its own moral growth. Believing 
this, it occurred to me to compare a newspaper of 25 years ago 
with the same newspaper of today, and, in order to make the 
comparison a fair one, I selected that newspaper which, by com¬ 
mon consent, is not surpassed, and possibly not equalled, by 
any other American newspaper. I refer to the New York 
“Times.” I do not affirm that it is the best paper in America, 
for the fate of Paris warns me not to make the hazardous 
attempt to award the apple between such capricious and jealous 
goddesses as are the owners and editors of newspapers. I con¬ 
tent myself with saying that there is none better for the purpose 
of the comparison that I have in mind. Nor does any foreign 
newspaper surpass it in the enterprise with which it gathers 
news, although, measured by a true sense of value, a few of 
the great English dailies and one or more of the Continental 
dailies might contest for the palm. 

I made an examination of the New York “Times” for April 
26, 1898, and then compared it with its issue for December 4, 
1923, and the comparison was not suggestive to me in indicating 
the comparative tendencies of the times. The earlier issue was 
fortunate in dealing with great events. On the day the Society 
was organized Congress recognized a state of war between Spain 
and the United States. 


100 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


Little we then recognized that the swift events of the suc¬ 
ceeding three months would mean the last breath of what had 
once been the greatest colonial world empire and the beginning 
of a new republican world power, upon whose flag, flying as an 
emblem of dominion from the coast of Maine to the Philippine 
Islands, at the very gates of China, the sun never sets. On that 
day John Sherman resigned as Secretary of State, and it was 
announced in Washington that a comparatively unknown young 
man who was then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy would 
transfer his amazing energies from one arm of the service to 
the other by enlisting a “cowboy regiment,” as it was called, for 
service in Cuba. How little one then realized the brilliant future 
of that great and heroic personality! At the theatres Richard 
Mansfield was playing “The First Violin,” Sol Smith Russell 
was given “A Bachelor’s Romance,” and “Carmen” was being 
played at the opera. There were then no vaudeville theatres or 
moving picture shows. It may interest some of my audience 
whose habitat is Wall Street to add that all of us with a little 
capital could have become millionaires for on that day Atchison 
was selling at $10 a share, General Electric at $30, Southern 
Pacific at $12, and Union Pacific at $18 a share. 

The earliest issue of the “Times” contained 12 pages and 
84 columns; the later issue 40 pages and 320 columns. The 
“Times” has thus quadrupled in size, and if the quantitative 
ideal which now governs civilization is the true test, the present- 
day “Times” is a greater newspaper. This possible satisfaction 
is somewhat lessened when I state that while the earlier issue 
contained 15 columns of advertisements, or approximately one- 
sixth of the newspaper, the later issue contained 202 columns 
of advertisements, or two-thirds of the issue. The day of the 
full-page department store advertising had not begun in 1898, 
and it may well be questioned whether the immense dominance 
of full-page advertisements has added anything either to the 
dignity or independence of journalism. 

Of the 84 columns of the earlier issue there were 32 columns, 
a little less than one-half, which were given to national and inter¬ 
national politics. In the later issue these great topics are only 
given 18 columns, or about one-twentieth of the newspaper. 
Exclusive of advertisements, the earlier issue gave about 70 
columns of reading matter, and the topics selected ran in much 
narrower channel than the later issue: 

5 columns of editorials. 

1 column of shipping news. 

2 columns of dramatic and musical reviews. 

13 columns of financial news. 

2 columns of real estate news. 

4 columns of legal news. 


101 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


These comprised the chief topics. Two subjects were con¬ 
spicuous by their almost complete absence: the one was humor, 
the other was sports. One-half column was given to poetry and 
jokes, and one and one-half columns to sports. This allotment 
to athletics has grown tenfold to 13 columns in the present-day 
“Times.” Then, as now, the “Times” refused to lower the tone 
of journalism by a page of so-called “comics.” Possibly nothing 
better illustrates the degeneracy of taste than the fact that a 
^ quarter of a century ago men still enjoyed “Sir John Falstaff.” 
Today it is “Andy Gump.” The two Dromios of the “Comedy 
of Errors” are now almost forgotten, but each day we have 
the monotonous banalities of “Mutt and Jeff.” 

The increased dominance of athletic sports in our day is a 
social phenomenon to which too little attention has been paid. It 
is not without some justification, for as a mechanical civilization 
has so largely eliminated real physical labor from life there is 
an instinctive demand of man to prevent physical decay by 
finding some outlet for his physical powers. 

Nevertheless, its dominating interest in our day has become 
a serious problem, for it indicates that the real change in the 
average man is in his sense of values. Today, we have lost a 
true sense of values, and such loss has been in the past the 
significant sign of the decay of a civilization. If Dempsey and 
Firpo had fought 25 years ago, the newspapers on the morning 
after the fight might have given a column to it, but today the 
modern newspaper will give whole pages to a wholly unim¬ 
portant and rather brutal contest for weeks and months before 
the event, and for weeks thereafter. Where a few hundred peo¬ 
ple would have witnessed the prize fight, for such it was, a 
quarter of a century ago, a hundred thousand will today journey 
from the four ends of the earth to see Dempsey and Firpo punch 
each other for a few fleeting moments. What is more significant, 
thousands of women are now spectators, even as Roman matrons 
2,000 years ago turned down their thumbs upon the gladiators 
of the Coliseum, who were “butchered to make a Roman holi¬ 
day.” Panem et circenses —bread and the circus—was the 
prelude to the fall of the Roman Empire. 

The value of athletic sports to those who actually participate 
in them cannot be denied, but those who are merely spectators 
gain nothing but amusement. In the greatest age of Greece, 
the Academy, where men communed upon the “true, the beauti¬ 
ful and the good,” and the palsestrum, where the youth of Athens 
wrestled and developed their physical power, were one insti¬ 
tution. If the Athenian youth loved to wrestle, he also loved 
his Homer. The Homer that the youth of today loves best is 
the kind that “Babe” Ruth contributes to the delight of an 
hysterical multitude. The chief amusement of today is the 


102 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


vaudeville show or a moving picture spectacle, the one saves 
concentrating of thought on any one subject for three hours, 
the other gives the maximum of emotional impression with the 
minimum of thought. The Athenian had the true sense of mens 
sana in corpore sano; but the later degeneracy of Athens and 
centuries later the decay of Rome was measured by the love of 
the hippodrome, where only a few contended and tens of thou¬ 
sands merely gratified the primitive lust for brutality as specta¬ 
tors. 


The press of today indubitably shows that we are in the 
age of the hippodrome, that even in our colleges where the well¬ 
born youth of our country should be trained to defend in these 
critical days our institutions the class room has been largely 
superseded by the stadium. 

Doubtless the press would disclaim responsibility for this 
degeneracy in our sense of values by its familiar claim that it 
simply gives the people that which interests them, but this is 
only a half truth; for while the newspaper must be, in the nature 
of the case, an abstract and brief chronicler of the times and 
must show to the spirit of the age its form and pressure, yet 
it is equally true that if the sense of values of the average man 
has been, as I claim, distorted, the press is largely responsible, 
for too often it creates the interest which it subsequently grati¬ 
fies. If, for example, there had never been a reference to the 
Dempsey-Firpo fight until the day before it took place, and then 
only in an obscure corner of the paper, few people would have 
been aware even of the existence of these favorite gladiators; 
but the interest in them was systematically developed by three 
months of antecedent publicity until every man, whether he liked 
a prize fight or not, felt a real curiosity to know who would be 
the winner. This is excellent for Mr. Rickard, who is reputed 
to have made $10,000,000 in staging these spectacles, but those 
of us who believe that the age is a very critical one and that if 
the frail bark of our institutions is to keep afloat, all men should 
give attention to the affairs of government, are not so enthusi¬ 
astic. 

This suggests another thought. Our institutions must de¬ 
pend in the last analysis, upon an intelligent and militant public 
opinion. The venerable parchment at Washington, upon which 
the Constitution of the United States was written, has no in¬ 
herent vigor to perpetuate itself. It was brought into existence 
by a people who took a most active and intelligent interest in 
public affairs and who had that genius for self-restraint without 
which the Constitution could never have been formulated or 
administered. I said recently in a newspaper article that while 
it was miraculous that one man could have written the plays of 
Shakespeare, it was as great a miracle that there had been a 


103 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


sufficiently receptive public in the “spacious days of Queen 
Elizabeth” to assimilate them. 

A receptive people was quite as necessary to this noble monu¬ 
ment to human wisdom as an inspired poet, for the prosperity 
of truth as well as of a jest lies in the ear of him who hears it. 
However wise our Constitution may be, our form of government 
cannot continue unless there is a people sufficiently receptive to 
make it workable; and if the people have lost interest in public 
affairs and are only concerned with the hippodrome or the mov¬ 
ing picture theatre, then sooner or later our government, like 
a stricken oak in the forest, will fall—and great would be the 
fall thereof. 

Two years before this earlier issue of the “Times,” there 
was a great electoral contest in this country. It was the McKin- 
ley-Bryan campaign. The issue was a simple one: Should the 
United States repudiate, in part, its own obligations and enable 
individual debtors, in part, to repudiate theirs by making a 50- 
cent silver dollar the equivalent of a 100-cent gold dollar by 
legislative fiat? The campaign of 1896 was a simple illustration 
and vindication of the ability of the American people to govern 
themselves wisely. They knew little of political economy, but 
they took a profound and militant interest in the right or wrong 
of the question. From June, 1896, when the candidates were 
nominated and the platforms adopted, until the election there 
was conducted throughout the country an amazing campaign of 
education. Millions of dollars were spent and hundreds of 
thousands of men marched weekly, and in some places nightly, 
in defense of the party whose principles they accepted. 

No such campaign is possible today, for the people are not 
interested in public affairs as they once were. Where they gladly 
listened to tens of thousands of speakers in 1896, today there 
are not ten men in this country who, by the magic of their names, / 
could fill a single hall to discuss public affairs. Where 25 years 
ago thousands of men would have given their time and energy 
and money for five months to their party, today comparatively 
few would lift a finger in any contest. In recent elections, less 
than one-half of the electorate had enough interest even to vote. 

In one national contest recently held, only 17 per cent of the 
registered vote cast their ballots. 

The fault does not lie in the absence of interesting issues. 
No question since the Civil War had such intrinsic interest or 
lasting importance as the great problems of the League of Na- y 
tions. Whether we believed in it or not, the underlying question 
was the attitude of the United States to the rest of the world 
and its policy with reference thereto. I did not believe in the 
League and travelled from Bar Harbor to Los Angeles to explain 


104 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


the grounds of my opposition to it, and the one inescapable 
impression that this journey made on my mind was that, with 
the exception of a few classes, the people did not greatly care 
whether we entered the League or stayed out of it. 

To what extent is the modem newspaper contributory to 
this loss of a true sense of the values of human life? Here, 
again, the comparison between the two issues of a really great 
newspaper may be helpful. 

The older newspaper restricted its columns to comparatively 
few topics. It gave the mind of the average man something that 
he could really assimilate. Moreover, its allotment of space 
was based on the comparative importance of a few topics which 
it selected as news. 

The later issue of the “Times” runs through the whole 
gamut of human life. Nothing that is human is foreign to it. 
I classified the topics in the older issue under 20 heads, and 
in the later issue under 44 heads. 

This suggests the grave question whether the mind of man 
is not being submerged in an ocean of printer’s ink, and whether 
the capacity for thought and action is not being dulled by the 
multiplicity of subjects which each day are crowded on his brain. 

Let me suggest an analogy. If I were to take a walk of 
30 miles outside of this great city, I would see from morning 
fo evening many beautiful sights of ineffaceable memory in the 
hills and valleys that surround New York. If, however, I took 
the Twentieth Century Limited and traveled forty times as far 
in the same time, I would, when I alighted at Chicago, have a 
very vague impression of crossing a few rivers and tunneling 
through a few mountains and passing through a few towns and 
cities. The multiplicity of images which would thus be flashed 
upon my brain from the window of my express train would 
prevent any one view from impressing itself either upon my 
imagination or memory. 

Enlarging the metaphor, we are traveling, as the press in¬ 
dicates, by the express train. Images flashed upon our con¬ 
sciousness are too transient for intelligent assimilation. More¬ 
over, the pernicious habit of breaking up newspaper articles in 
order to have as many leading topics on the first page as pos¬ 
sible causes such scattered and unsure observances that it tends 
to make us an age of scatterbrains. If, after reading in frag¬ 
ments 15 or 20 different and unrelated topics, we reach one 
clear conclusion or form one useful resolution, then, before we 
do anything, the evening paper comes out and crowds out of 
our brains, whose capacity is limited, the useful impressions 
of the morning. 


105 


WHAT IS PROGRESS? 


The founders of this Republic were clear-headed, because 
the issues of life were extremely simple, and they concentrated 
their time and energies upon them. Today, the mind of man is 
little more than a moving picture show, upon whose screen 
events are momentarily flashed with lightning rapidity. Thus 
hopelessly confused by the multiplicity of subjects, the average 
man today cannot concentrate on a great public issue as he did 
100 years ago, or even 25 years ago. 

You may agree with me in this diagnosis, but you may ask, 
what is the remedy? 

Time would not permit me to discuss it even though I had 
the ability. One thing is clear—that nothing can stop the in¬ 
fluence of a mechanical age in lessening the hours of labor, and 
if there be any salvation for human society, it must lie in the 
better utilization by man of his lengthening hours of leisure. 
That he may wisely use these, it is necessary that he should be 
given a truer sense of the values of human life, and this should 
be the mission of the great institutions which mold human 
thought, like the church, the school, the press, the theatre. 

The life and death of a civilization depends upon its sense 
of values. By common consent, the greatest civilization ever 
attained by man was in the Periclean age, four centuries before 
Christ. It was because the little people of Athens had a true 
sense of values. A century later, the glory of that golden age 
had passed, and all that interested the men of Athens was the 
latest triumph of the favorite athlete or the newest confection 
of the chief pastry cook. A few centuries later, Demosthenes 
reproached the people of Athens by saying: “Unmindful of 
your liberties, you are always gadding about after news.” 

A century later it was recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 
that the reason why the once most cultured people of antiquity 
could not listen to a serious talk by Paul was that their sense 
of values had become so confused that the only thing that inter¬ 
ested them was to hear or tell something new. Today the crav¬ 
ing for news is such that it must not only be satisfied each day 
with fresh sensations, but almost each hour of the day, for the 
straphanger who reads his headlines on the subway going down¬ 
town awaits with greater expectancy, a few hours later, the 
first appearance of the afternoon editions. Nothing makes any 
lasting impression. He has the “moving picture” brain, and of 
such stuff a true civilization cannot be made. 


106 


MAKERS OF THE FLAG 


by 


FRANKLIN K. LANE 






































































































»» 


















































































































































































. 




























































Makers of the Flag 

By 

Franklin K. Lane 


Address delivered on Flag Day, 1914, 
before the employees of the Depart¬ 
ment of the Interior, Washington, 
D. C. 


This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, the Flag 
dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds 
I heard it say: “Good Morning, Mr. Flag Maker.” 

“I beg your pardon, Old Glory,” I said, “aren’t you mistaken? 
I am not the President of the United States, nor a member of 
Congress, nor even a general in the army. I am only a Govern¬ 
ment Clerk.” 

“I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker,” replied the gay voice, 
“I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter 
of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer’s 
homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in that 
Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for 
the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that 
new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more safe, or 
brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter; which¬ 
ever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, 
I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker.” 

I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with 
these words: 

“Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier 
the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no 
larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is 
making to win the Corn Club prize this summer. 

“Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the 
door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise 
until far into the night, to give her boy an education. She, too, 
is making the flag. 

“Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, 
and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first 


109 


MAKERS OF THE FLAG 


letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer 
to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag.” 

“But,” I said impatiently, “these people were only working!” 

Then came a great shout from The Flag: 

“The work that we do is the making of the flag. 

“I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow. 

“I am whatever you make me, nothing more. 

“I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a People 
may become. 

“I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heart 
breaks and tired muscles. 

“Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an hon¬ 
est work, fitting the rails together truly. 

“Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, 
and cynically I play the coward. 

“Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that 
blasts judgment. 

“But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have the 
courage to try for. 

“I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope. 

“I am the day’s work of the weakest man, and the largest 
dream of the most daring. 

“I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the 
statute makers, soldier and dreadnaughts, drayman and street 
sweep, cook, counselor and clerk. 

“I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of tomorrow. 

“I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why. 

“I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of 
resolution. 

“I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all 
that you believe I can be. 

“I am what you make me, nothing more. 


110 


MAKERS OF THE FLAG 


“I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a sym¬ 
bol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which 
makes this nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and 
your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with cour¬ 
age, firm with faith, because you have them so out of your 
hearts. For you are the makers of the flag and it is well that 
you glory in the making." 


Ill 








WAR MUST GO 


by 

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 






















































































































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* 



















































































































































































































War Must Go 


By 


Carrie Chapman Catt 


From an address before a County 
League of Women Voters. 


I say this question of war or peace is greater than all others 
because it includes nearly all the problems which are today en¬ 
gaging our thought and our labors. We are all groaning under 
the load of taxation. We are all groaning under the high cost 
of living, and both of them are here as a direct result of the last 
great war. Most of us are worried and anxious over the un¬ 
precedented existence of crime, of unrest, of violation of law of 
every kind, and all of these, if not caused by the great war, were 
certainly all greatly aggravated by it. Indeed, I know of no 
question which has not been changed in its general significance 
because we had that great war. 

Today the world is better prepared for a war than any other 
time in its entire history. There is only one thing lacking and 
that is money. Most of the nations have not quite so much at 
their command as they would like, but they have everything else. 
Fourteen nations in the world have conscription and at this 
moment are training all their young men in military science, and 
it is estimated that the armies now trained or in training in these 
fourteen nations will number 250 millions, a number as much in 
excess of the men who were trained and ready for the war of 
1914, as those were greater than those that had taken part in 
the wars that had preceded it. 

It is the system of preparedness that is making ready for 
the next war. There seems to have been a certain type of 
scientific mind that was challenged by the great number of new 
ideas that were introduced into the last great war and the war 
came to an end just in the midst of the inventions of new ideas 
to offset the old ones. Consequently the inventions of destruction 
which were introduced as a novelty in the great war have been 
adopted by all the great countries and many of the small ones 
in their regular preparations for the next war. We, therefore, 
in our own country, have the submarines, we have poison gas, 
we have airplanes. We are ready, so they say, with other sur¬ 
prising inventions for the next war. 


115 


WAR MUST GO 


Another difficulty that lies before us is simply this: If you 
will take away from every discussion of the general question 
of peace all its details, discussion lies around a single point. 
There are in every country two militaristic groups. One of them 
is comparatively small. It is a group that wants war, likes war, 
and profits by war. It is said that after the last war there were 
21,000 millionaires created in this country. These figures came 
from the income tax returns. Now, it would not be strange if 
some among these would like to have another war and make a 
few million more. I do not think, however, that this class is a 
great factor in the general question of peace. To be sure, there 
is somebody who is even now paying bills for an anti-peace propa¬ 
ganda. I do not know whether it might be some of these peo¬ 
ple or whether it is some other influence. 

The other militaristic factor is a great one. It will include 
millions of our people. It includes many of you, who are here 
today. It is a class of honest and sincere people who believe 
that the only way to maintain peace is to be so thoroughly pre¬ 
pared for war as to frighten away all enemies that may appear. 
It is as if the people of Spain had prepared the Philippines for 
defense against any and all enemies. Not a man in Spain had 
ever dreamed of America as an enemy. They thought of 
Japan. They thought of China, both of which had attacked their 
islands in time past. They might have dreamed of the English 
or the French or the Germans. They never thought of Ameri¬ 
cans. But after the Philippines had been taken there was a meet¬ 
ing of the Spanish parliament and one of the members asked a 
question of the government: “How does it happen that the 
Philippines have been taken by an enemy country? Have we 
not spent millions and millions to build an impregnable fort and 
have we not been told that that fort is impregnable? How did 
it happen, then, that in spite of all the money we have paid, in 
spite of all the taxes we have raised, that we have lost the Philip¬ 
pines ?” The secret was that forts had gone out of fashion and 
that the Americans won the Philippines in ways that had not 
been dreamed of when that fort was building. And so today 
with all the preparations for war we collect and we spend millions 
and even billions only to find that the method on which we have 
spent our money soon becomes impossible. Even the Washington 
conference for the limitation of naval armament which at the 
moment seemed so bold and wonderful a thing to have done, 
did not create the impression around the world which in the 
beginning we had reason to think it would, because the mili¬ 
tarists of every nation said, “Oh, naval ships are no longer the 
means of destruction in war. There never will be another naval 
battle for other things have come to take their places." And yet 
the competition goes on and on, and every nation taxes its people 
and builds whatever happens to be the fashion in military pre¬ 
paredness at that date. 


116 


WAR MUST GO 


When the Germans overcame France in 1871, the story goes, 
that the French people were appealed to to give money which 
Germany demanded as an indemnity, $5,000,000,000, and that 
they went down into their stockings and into their sugar bowls 
to bring out their little savings and to give them to their gov¬ 
ernment in order that they might drive the Germans from their 
soil, but now we are learning that the truth was not quite that. 
They did give all their earnings. They did, but it wasn’t any¬ 
thing like enough to pay that indemnity and France borrowed 
the money. She issued bonds, some of which were bought in 
other lands, but she borrowed the money chiefly with which to 
pay the Germans. It was paid promptly and the Germans took 
the money and used it for preparedness at home, but the French 
have not yet paid that indemnity to Germany because they have 
not yet paid their bonds and are still paying interest on them, so 
even that war has not come to an end. 

Now is it not an absurd thing in this 20th century that men 
of intelligence, men of great business sagacity, men who use all 
the intelligence and acumen they have learned in their lifetime 
in their own business, in this collective business of a nation, use 
none at all, but go on drifting in the same old way that the gen¬ 
erations have used since the beginning of time? Preparedness 
for our enemies! Never was there a nation yet that prepared for 
aggression. Every nation prepares for defense. We are pre¬ 
paring for defense. Whom do we dream of as an enemy? We 
dreamed of Japan and every time there was a motion pending in 
our Congress for more appropriations for army or navy or any 
sort of preparedness, whenever it was pending here, in the news¬ 
papers of the country simultaneously, there were always stories 
which aroused suspicion of the motives of Japan, and in the 
minds of the average persons there was carefully built up in this 
country a belief that the Japanese had the intention of doing 
something to our own country. Did they not tell us that they 
intended some day to make an attack upon the Philippines and 
take it away? But while we are so familiar with this kind of 
publicity in our country that we scarcely realize from what 
source we have received these ideas, how many of us have known 
at the very same moment the same thing was going on in Japan, 
and that Japan was all the time using these things we said in 
our own country, to show the unfriendly relations of this coun¬ 
try to Japan? But now the Washington conference has ironed 
out that wrinkle in the Pacific and the late tragedy of Japan and 
the helpfulness of our own country have probably removed that 
scare for some years to come and something new has to be sup¬ 
plied. At present that something new is the fear of the soviets, 
and it is said subtly against every peace society in this country 
—and there are eighty of them—it has been said of each one 
separately that it is being financed by Moscow, that every promi¬ 
nent peace worker is in league with the Red propaganda, and 
you who are working for the world court, I give you this advice 


117 


WAR MUST GO 


now, you will hear before you are through that the world court is 
probably one of Moscow’s propositions. That is the present 
means to arouse the scare in people, to keep us working on the 
preparedness program. There is a situation in this country 
which exists everywhere, but in addition to the general fright 
which all nations feel of this imaginary enemy which is going to 
attack them, there is something more. We have been so thor¬ 
oughly wound around and confused by politics on this question 
of peace that there is more unclear thinking in America than is 
wont. The situation reminds me of a speech I once heard in my 
life, but as that happened many years ago, as the years have 
followed I have begun to think it was the most wonderful one 
I ever heard. Said he, ‘T was born a Quaker. I was brought up 
to abhor war. I believe sincerely and honestly that war must 
be abolished, and that I believed in one side of my head. But 
in the other side of my head I believed that no woman ought to 
vote because she could not fight. Then,” said he, “one day I 
got the two sides of my head together and we talked it out and 
I became a woman suffragist.” Now I find that in the average 
American head there is a sincere and honest desire for peace, 
for perennial peace, faith in it, but on the other side of the head 
there lingers so much of the spirit of the caveman, with its 
craftiness, its caution, its jealousy, and especially its fears, that 
the caveman side of the head never permits the peace man’s side 
of the head to do what it knows it ought to do. And so the nation 
composed of these bifurcated-headed citizens fights bravely for 
peace, but prepares for war, and that is the way we are moving 
on. I am not one of those who believe that all the army and all 
the armament should be given up and that we should trust that 
everything will move aright. I only go as far as to believe that 
in these preparations for war we are deceiving ourselves and 
deceiving our neighbors, when easily, comparatively easily, we 
could save the money, save the anxiety, save our self-respect, by 
establishing world peace. 


118 


MORE THAN MERE SUCCESS 
OF PARTY 


by 


WOODROW WILSON 






More Than Mere Success of Party 


By 


Woodrow Wilson 


Inaugural address delivered at Capi¬ 
tal, March 4th, 1913. 


There has been a change of government. It began two years 
ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by 
a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate 
about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of Presi¬ 
dent and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Demo¬ 
crats. What does the change mean ? That is the question that is 
uppermost in our minds today. That is the question I am going 
to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion. 

It means much more than the mere success of a party. The 
success of a party means little except when the Nation is using 
that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake 
the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Demo¬ 
cratic Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own 
plans and point of view. Some old things with which we had 
grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very 
habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect 
as we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, 
awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown them¬ 
selves alien and sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly 
upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have 
come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, 
stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new 
insight into our own life. 

We see that, in many things, that life is very great. It is 
incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, 
in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which 
have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men 
and the limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great, also, 
very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have 
noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty 
and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their 
efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in 
the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a 
great system of government, which has stood through a long 
age as m many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty 


121 


MORE THAN MERE SUCCESS OF PARTY 

upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, 
against storm and accident. Our life contains every great thing, 
and contains it in rich abundance. 

But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold 
has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. 
We have squandered a great part of what we might have used, 
and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, 
without which our genius for enterprise would have been worth¬ 
less and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal 
as well as admirably efficient. We have been proud of our indus¬ 
trial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thought¬ 
fully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed 
out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and 
spiritual cost of the men and women and children upon whom 
the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the 
years through. The groans and agony of it all had not yet 
reached our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, com¬ 
ing up out of the mines and factories and out of every home 
where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With 
the great Government went many deep secret things which we 
too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless 
eyes. The great Government we loved has too often been made 
use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had 
forgotten the people. 

At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. 
We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the 
sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our 
duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil 
without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every 
process of our common life without weakening or sentimentaliz¬ 
ing it. There has been something crude and heartless and un¬ 
feeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has 
been “Let every man look out for himself, let every generation 
look out for itself,” while we reared giant machinery which made 
it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of con¬ 
trol should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had 
not forgotten our morals. We remembered well enough that 
we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the humblest 
as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards 
of justice and fair play, and remembered it with pride. But we 
were very heedless and in a hurry to be great. 

We have come now to the sober second-thought. The scales 
of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have made up 
our minds to square every process of our national life again with 
the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have 
always carried at our hearts. Our work is a work of restora¬ 
tion. 


122 


MORE THAN MERE SUCCESS OF PARTY 


We have itemized with some degree of particularity the 
things that ought to be altered and here are some of the chief 
items: A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the 
commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, 
and makes the Government a facile instrument in the hands of 
private interests; a banking and currency system based upon the 
necessity of the Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and 
perfectly adapted to concentrating cash and restricting credits; 
an industrial system which, take it on all its sides, financial as 
well as administrative, holds capital in leading strings, restricts 
the liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits, 
without renewing or conserving, the natural resources of the 
country; a body of agricultural activities never yet given the 
efficiency of great business undertakings or served as it should 
be through the instrumentality of science taken directly to the 
farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best suited to its practi¬ 
cal needs; watercourses developed, waste places unreclaimed, 
forests untended, fast disappearing without plan or prospect 
of renewal, unregarded waste heaps at every mine. We have 
studied, as perhaps no other nation has, the most effective means 
of production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we 
should, either as organizers of industry, as statesmen, or as in¬ 
dividuals. 

Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which gov¬ 
ernment may be put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding 
the health of the Nation, the health of its men and its women and 
its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence. 
This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is jus¬ 
tice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no 
equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body 
politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their 
lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial 
and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly 
cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush 
or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty 
of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, 
pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which 
individuals are powerless to determine for themselves, are 
intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency. 

There are some of the things, we ought to do, and not leave 
the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, 
fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right. 
This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift everything 
that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that shines from 
the hearth fire of every man’s conscience and vision of the right. 
It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans ; it is in¬ 
conceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are, 
or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal 
with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not 


123 


MORE THAN MERE SUCCESS OF PARTY 


as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and 
step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit 
of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and 
knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement of 
excursions whither they cannot tell. Justice, and only justice, 
shall always be our motto. 

And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The 
Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, 
stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government 
too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feel¬ 
ings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity 
sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God’s own 
presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge 
and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task 
of politics, but a task which shall search us through and through, 
whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our 
people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, 
whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified 
will to choose our high course of action. 

This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here 
muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. 
Men’s hearts wait upon us; men’s lives hang in the balance; 
men’s hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live 
up to the great trust? Who dares fail to"try? I summon all 
honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. 
God helping me, I will not fail them if they will but counsel and 
sustain me! 


124 


THE SALVAGING OF WESTERN 
CIVILIZATION 


by 


GLENN FRANK 



















































































































































































* • 































The Salvaging of Western Civilization 


By 


Glenn Frank 


Address delivered at annual State 
Convention Minnesota Education As¬ 
sociation, St. Paul, 1923. 


I want to discuss with you the idea that today dominates 
my whole thought about the future of Western civilization, and 
even thrusts itself persistently into the foreground of every 
personal plan I try to make for the next twenty-five years of my 
life—the idea of a vast spiritual renaissance of the Western 
world, a renaissance the roots of which are even now set deep 
in contemporary thought and aspiration, a renaissance which 
may, I believe, by the grace of creative and courageous leadership 
be brought to fruition within the lifetime of men and women 
now living. 

Let me trace the genealogy of this idea as it has arisen in 
my own mind. During the last four or five years I had been in¬ 
creasingly impressed by the extent and cock-sureness of the 
lifetime of despair that was being written. In a casual attempt 
to clarify my own thinking, I subjected this literature of 
despair to analysis. I think it is accurate to say that the 
prophecy of a New Dark Age for Western civilization springs 
from some one or all of five distinct fears, which we may con¬ 
veniently call the five fears of Western civilization. 

First, the biological fear. This is the fear that the best 
blood of the world is turning to water, that mankind is biological¬ 
ly plunging downward, that we are breeding from our less and 
least fit stock. This is the fear that has given instant and wide 
popularity to such books as Lothrop Stoddard’s “The Rising Tide 
of Color” and his “The Revolt Against Civilization.” 

Second, the psychological fear. This is the fear that the 
crowd-man and crowd-processes of thinking will push to the wall 
that insurgent individual whom we have hitherto regarded as 
one of the mainstays of progress. This is the fear that has fal¬ 
len like a shadow across the writings of LeBon, Trotter, and 
others, and of late inspired Everett Dean Martin to write his 
“The Behavior of Crowds.” 


127 


SALVAGING OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 


Third, the economic fear. This is the fear that our industrial 
civilization has overreached itself and is due for a collapse. 

Fourth, the administrative fear. This is the fear, effective¬ 
ly stated by the late Lord Bryce and others, that the bigness and 
complexity of the modern world have outstripped the administra¬ 
tive capacity of mankind. 

Fifth, the moral fear. This is the fear that has given rise to 
the whole literature about the younger generation. Whether dis¬ 
cussing the rolled stockings of the flapper or the heretic theology 
of rationalist rectors, there is evident throughout this litera¬ 
ture, the fear that this “wild generation” has renounced al¬ 
legiance to all wholesome standards of conduct and is on the loose. 

Whether it is Dean Inge, H. G. Wells, Edward Grant Conklin, 
Lothrop Stoddard, Ralph Adams Cram, Madison Grant, or a still 
wider list of men more scholarly or more sensational whom we 
are reading, we find some one or all of these fears leering over 
the shoulder of the writer, turning him into the prophet of doom 
that he is. 

I do not suggest that we disregard this literature of despair. 
We must not delude ourselves into thinking that we can shut 
our eyes to the ugliest facts of our time and stay the processes 
of political, social, industrial and racial disintegration by bland¬ 
ly chanting “day by day in every way we are getting better and 
better.” These five fears of Western civilization are well 
grounded. Our duty is not to ignore these fears but to conquer 
them; and to conquer them not by emotional incantation but by 
removing their causes. We cannot merely stand still, look up, 
think beautiful thoughts, and wish ourselves into a renaissance. 

I want to say, however, that there also is a literature of hope 
that is even more significant than this literature of despair. Of 
course the literature of despair has had all the advertising to 
date. A prophecy of doom is always more sensational than a 
prophecy of hope. It matters not how dignified a scholar may 
be. When he predicts the doom of Western Civilization, he 
shares audience with the cheapest sensation monger. Pessimism, 
like politics, makes strange bed fellows. 

But the real reason why we hear more about the literature 
of despair is that it can be found in a series of books devoted 
entirely to definite pessimistic conclusions, whereas the only real 
literature of hope that we have is not the smiling and sickly 
sweet pronouncements of our male “Pollyannas,” but is made up 
of the creative ideas, the new idealisms and the new spiritual 
values that have been thrown up as unconscious by-products of 
the thought and investigation of our modern biologists, 
psychologists, economists, educationalists, statesmen, and in¬ 
dustrial leaders. 


128 


SALVAGING OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 


You can select the books of Dean Inge, H. G. Wells, Lothrop 
Stoddard, Ralph Adams Cram, the Boston mediaevalist, and 
others and say “Here is a five foot shelf of the literature of 
despair.” You can’t do that with the literature of hope. It is 
made up of an idea here and an idea there, hopelessly inco- 
ordinated and rarely if ever tied up to a definite prophecy of 
either the rise or fall of our civilization. It is sometimes neces¬ 
sary to read a dozen volumes written by some biologist, some 
psychologist or some economist in order to find one paragraph 
that really belongs in our literature of hope, that represents that 
man’s contribution to our literature of hope. 

Our literature of hope is a literature of raw materials for 
a renaissance, not a literature of conclusions about the possi¬ 
bilities of a renaissance. It is the business of the engineers of 
this coming renaissance to find out what these creative ideas 
are and translate them into the language of a man of the streets. 
I do not presume to be able to say what these ideas that will 
give us a renaissance are, but of one thing we are certain: The 
ideas that are to inspire a great renewal of Western civilization 
must be and will be very simple ideas. Involved ideas never move 
great masses of people. 

Every man is entitled to his guess, however, and I venture 
to suggest, without extensive discussion, eight ideas that seem 
to me must be rescued from the jargon of technical scholarship, 
taken out from under the exclusive patronage of cloistered in¬ 
tellectuals and put to honest work in the direction of our public 
affairs if we are to close the door to a new Dark Age and open 
the door to a New Renaissance. 

First, the idea of a cultural nationalism. I do not see how 
Western civilization can survive if it persists in its allegiance 
to political nationalism, which has turned all Europe into a “bear¬ 
garden” and maintained over the centuries a constant censure of 
periodic wars. Nationalism as we have known it must go. Pa¬ 
triotism as we have known it must go, or Western civilization 
will go. And yet there is something about devotion to the father- 
land which is rooted deep in human nature. The engineers of 
the coming renaissance must not fly in the face of human nature. 
The trouble with Utopians has been that they have set up logical¬ 
ly perfect worlds in which no human being could be hired to live. 
There is something basic in nationalism which must be preserved. 
We must substitute for political nationalism a cultural national¬ 
ism that will convert world politics into a competition in excel¬ 
lence instead of a competition in armies. 

Second, the idea of an economic internationalism. I think 
we have approached internationalism from the wrong angle— 
the political angle. We began talking about an international 


129 


SALVAGING OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 


political machine which gave the gray bearded and gray brained 
senators a chance to dramatize their own lack of vision and to 
misinterpret the vision of the fathers. All signs indicate that 
the world is not ready for an internationalism in the form of 
a super policeman. I think the world needs a super policeman. I 
am saying only that there seems to be little chance for installing 
him now. But the fact remains that the modern world is an 
economic unit. It cannot be managed except by some sort of 
common management. Common sense will force us into some 
sort of international management of the fundamental economic 
rights of transit, trade, migration, and investment in backward 
countries. When we have brought enough economic problems 
under international control, we shall discover that with the slight¬ 
est co-ordination of the various international boards and com¬ 
mittees we shall have a realistic league of nations, as contrasted 
with the political league of nations, the proposal of which was 
the signal for American political opinion to disintegrate into a 
score of warring camps. 

Third, the idea of a democratized industry. The future be¬ 
longs to democracy, but to a redefined democracy, no democ¬ 
racy as we have known it. Certainly in industry we have to 
realize that democracy is not government by a referendum of 
blockheads. To date most of our thought about democracy has 
been emotional. But democracy in industry must be a workable 
democracy. It must “deliver the goods.” Industry cannot take 
over political democracy as we have known it. I look to industry 
to lead the way in a reform of democracy from which govern¬ 
ments will learn a lesson. 

Fourth, the idea of a liberalized business. I do not mean 
the sentimental liberalism of the business man who wants to “up¬ 
lift the poor working men,” but a scientific liberalism which 
realizes that the business of the future must be socially sound 
in order to be commercially sound. 

Fifth, the idea of a rationalized politics. I mean by this 
the placing of politics upon a fact basis. The coming renaissance 
will marry research to government. The schism between politics 
and fact has meant a dangerous celibacy from which we suffer 
daily. 

Sixth, the idea of a humanized education. I mean by this 
the very simple idea, now begun to be widely recognized, that 
the stimulation of interest is more important than the impres¬ 
sion of disbelief, and that the primary business of education 
is to make the student at home in the modern world, and to 
enable him to work in harmony with the dominant forces of his 
time, not at cross purposes with them. 


130 


SALVAGING OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 


Seventh, the idea of socialized religion. The religion of 
the coming renaissance will speak to society as well as to the 
soul. Its “scheme of redemption” will be concerned with insti¬ 
tutions as well as individuals. It will be as much at home in the 
counting room as in the cathedral. 

Eighth, the idea of a well bred race. I do not mean simply 
a race that knows how to avoid dropping its fork at the dinner 
table, but a race that has taken to heart the elementary lessons 
of biology, and realizes its ethical responsibility to the unborn. 


These eight ideas are in my judgment among the important 
raw-materials for any renaissance, reform, renewal, or revolu¬ 
tion that is to pull this ramshackle, post-war world of ours to¬ 


gether. 


131 







COMMUNITY CONSERVATION 


OF 

WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


by 

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN 



























































































































































■ • 







































































































































































































































































































































Community Conservation of 
Women’s Strength 

By 


Charlotte Perkins Gilman 


An address given before the Inter¬ 
national Conference of Women 
Physicians. 


They asked us to speak on the community conservation of 
women’s strength. I suppose most of us think of legal benefits, 
limiting hours and improving conditions for women in industry. 
That is good, necessary for women and men, and should be pro¬ 
moted, but I wish to treat the subject in a larger way, showing 
the effect of the community on women’s strength, through our 
social psychology, through the general idea and belief about 
women, the things that little girls grow up into, because of the 
belief of the community; and, further, in the effect upon woman’s 
strength of their almost total lack of the social advantages of 
organization, specialization, exchange of labor. 

First, I wish to carry that back into the past, to the cruel and 
unjust judgment upon women as unclean. That did not come 
from the woman, but from the man of olden times, was put upon 
them as an affliction and a disgrace long before they would 
have thought of such a thing themselves, and has come down to 
us through the ages—the feeling that we were unclean and that 
we were the weaker sex. Now, on that side, there is rising 
today in the biological knowledge of the world the recognition 
that the female is the race type, that she is not a later accessory 
and assistant of the male, but that she was the original form of 
the race; if there is a question of time, of precedence, she comes 
first; and, further—this is a little idea of my own that I think 
will please some of you—that in the evolution of the species and 
the improvement of the processes of life, the greatest steps were 
those which led to a higher form of birth, to better nourishment 
for the young. When the power of laying eggs was developed 
that was a great step; when the young were born alive, that was 
great and, finally, when proper food came with the young, when 
the mother was able, not only to carry the child and care for it, 
but to feed it after it came all the higher species are based on 
that main feature, all the highest grade of life. Now, that de- 


135 


COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


velopment, which involves the introduction and transmission of 
new organs and functions, all that development has come 
through the female alone. We are the “order mammalia.” 

Yet, so complete has been the social prejudice against 
women that these superior powers have been discussed as 
“feminine disabilities.” They are not disabilities. They are 
super-abilities. The female is human plus. She is a human being 
and also a female, and note there that her being a female is tem¬ 
porary, she outgrows it and then becomes pure human—the only 
pure human type, as the male does not outgrow the disability of 
sex until he reaches an advanced age. 

Accepting this view that the woman is not weaker, she is 
not secondary, she is not an assistant, she is a type of the human 
race fully equal with the male, we have then to face the exist¬ 
ing conditions of relative weakness of women! Is it necessary ? 
Do we find it invariably among women? No. Where condi¬ 
tions are equal and the girl and boy have the same training and 
the same freedom, the girl is the stronger. She is able to per¬ 
form activities other than those of sex throughout life if she is 
a normal woman. 

When we study the conditions of women in industry, with 
their effect upon motherhood and the effect upon the child, we 
are all too likely to forget some of the conditions. We speak 
of industry as it is, as if that was a law of nature, whereas, the 
question should be: is a normal woman able to work at any 
kind of work which she likes, for a reasonable number of hours 
under good conditions? Does that hurt her as a mother? 

Then we make another assumption, which is equally impos¬ 
sible. We speak of the woman at work and the woman at home, 
as if the woman at home did not work. We are always speaking 
of the terrible effects of the factory, the mill, upon the woman. 
We do not speak of the effect of the kitchen upon the woman. 
The farmers’ wife and the workman’s wife work longer hours 
than any woman works in any mill. 

Then, again, we speak of the woman going to work and 
leaving the home, the effect on the children of having the mother 
gone from the home. We speak as if the home was necessarily 
left empty and forlorn or full of helpless children. That is not 
necessary. One of the speakers this morning spoke on the idea 
of suitable care for children, little children, while the mother 
is working, and the speaker from China said that in her country 
they provided the working mother with time to nurse the baby. 
You would think any one would have sense enough for that. 
The baby must be nursed, but the mother need not nurse the 
baby for three or four or five hours. Industry must be made to 
conform to womanhood. 


136 


COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


Quite outside of the existing conditions in industry, I wish 
to speak most on the effect upon woman, her health, her strength, 
her happiness and her development, of the uniform require¬ 
ments of one kind of work—or a half dozen kinds of work at 
once, housework, which the great majority of women are ex¬ 
pected to perform in addition to the work of the mother and 
teacher of children at home. One of the most injurious factors 
in human life is having to do work for which you are not fitted. 
It is injurious to man and woman alike. If all men were re¬ 
quired to practice one trade they would be injured by it and they 
would be inevitably held to the grade of that one trade. The 
majority of women by trade are still domestic servants. They 
may not be paid servants, but the service is just the same. The 
effect on the body, the effect on the mind of the person working 
is from the work, not from what it is called. 

Now, if you will think of the effect on the race—if all men 
were in the position of butlers and footmen and cooks, all of 
them, whether they liked it or not, you see something of what t 
mean of the effect upon woman. It prevents the development of 
faculties that could be used in higher work; it puts a premium 
on the low grade woman and a discount on the high grade 
woman. I do not speak with any prejudice. I have done house¬ 
work all my life and am doing it yet. 


It is not a matter of personal feeling; it is a judgment upon 
the effect on the human race of keeping one sex as the servant 
of the other. It is not good for the health or the happiness or 
the strength of race. What has the community done for the con¬ 
servation of the strength of man? Why is it that men today 
are able to dig the Panama Canal, to put up a building like this, 
to fill the world with all the works that art and science have given 
to us? How do they do it? Does any one man do it alone with 
his hands in one room? It is all the result of specialization, 
organization, interchange of labor. Men have risen and risen 
in every organized community service and we have not. Women 
are doing today the same kind of work that they did ten cen¬ 
turies ago, thirty centuries ago, and one hundred thousand years 
ago, except as benefited by certain inventions which they did not 
make. 

The difference in the strength of men—I put it here arith¬ 
metically so that it may make an impression on those who are 
arithmetically minded—is like this: where one man alone, as a 
separate animal, could do something equal, say, to five, as a mem¬ 
ber of society his efficiency is squared by association, twenty-five; 
cubed by the advantage of labor, 125; raised to the fourth power 
by the tool, 625; to the fifth power by the machine, 3,125; to the 
sixth, by the use of natural forces, 15,625. This is just an ex¬ 
treme illustration of what makes one man with the machinery 


137 


COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


able to do the work of a thousand, where one woman, with her 
own hands and some few improvements is doing just what one 
woman used to do in the dim past. 

What would be the gain to the service and the strength of 
woman, if this work came under the advantages of social organi¬ 
zation ? If the work that woman now does alone, as an amateur, 
every one doing the same, could be done by organized groups of 
highly specialized, skilled women, with a chance to rise in their 
profession, to be known in the town and State and country and 
in the world as leading in that particular line and as properly paid 
for it, what would be the advantage to the woman and to the 
children and to the husband? Instead, we live by one of those 
ancient theories, one of those deep-rooted traditions that has 
come down to us from the remotest past, that the home, is an 
institution that cannot be changed. 

Monogamous marriage is an institution that cannot be 
changed without injury to the human race. Our species, like 
many another animal, is benefited by monogamy. The biological 
basis for monogamy is this: when it is to the advantage of the 
young of a species to have the continued care of two parents, 
then you have monogamy, whether it is birds or animals or peo¬ 
ple. Civil, social, and religious laws are built on that. 

Is there any law of nature that requires a certain kind of 
industry, to be performed at home? Many say they think there 
is, but what kind? 

In the beginning all industry was done at home and done 
by women. They were the beginners, the inventors, the 
originators of our industry. For ages they led the world be¬ 
cause they could work while the man could only hunt and fight. 
But since then man’s work has risen and woman’s has remained 
at its primitive stage. 

Now, if it were organized, the first gain would be the saving 
of labor to the woman, and that saving would be from seventy- 
five to eighty per cent. At present, we have one woman to cook 
for three or four or five other people. One person can cook for 
from thirty to fifty, three cooks could easily cook for one hun¬ 
dred, four cooks could easily cook for one hundred and fifty; five 
for two hundred. With organization, with mechanical appliances, 
you save labor. We at present waste seventy-five per cent of the 
labor of women, the strength of women, by having them all do 
these things alone and separately. 

With that saving in the labor would come an equal saving 
in expenses. We waste ninety per cent, in the plant in our do¬ 
mestic industry, one hundred kitchens for one hundred families, 
where in one-tenth the space we could do the work of the hun- 


138 


COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


dred; and ninety per cent in the fuel, which is a heavy part of 
household expenses. We may fairly say that between seventy- 
five and eighty per cent for the labor and up to ninety per cent 
for the fuel and the plant is wasted in the housework of women. 

Besides that waste of labor and that waste of money, an¬ 
other waste appears in the purchasing of all the small supplies 
for all separate kitchens, when they could be bought in bulk. 
Against all this waste stands the increase to the family income, 
if both members of the family are earning; and besides that 
comes the gain in the health and happiness of women when each 
of them can do the work she best enjoys and is, therefore, best 
able to do. And besides that again comes the service to human¬ 
ity of all the talent, the power that is now buried in the million 
kitchens where women do their duty as best they can, but are 
never able to do the work for which they are naturally fitted. 

Now, the immediate demand, following any such proceeding 
as this, is, what are we to do. How can it be done? Can it be 
worked? Is it possible? It is perfectly possible to prepare hot 
food in a shop and serve it in the home. This has been done ever 
since there was any kind of civilization. The cook has been a 
human functionary just as long as any other. Away back in 
Pharaoh’s time, you remember, the baker was there at his work. 
To prepare food and send it to the home is just as practicable 
as to have the cow milked a good many miles away and the milk 
brought to the home. It is being done in many places. They 
have just started a new—what they call a community kitchen, 
in Evanston, Illinois. They have a fine one flourishing now in 
New York and in different places throughout the country. If 
you remove the kitchen, you take out all the grease and most of 
the ashes. 

There then remain the children. Our present theory, our 
absolute belief—heaven knows what we base it on—is that lit¬ 
tle children are best taken care of by their own individual 
mothers, whether the mothers know anything or not. The doc¬ 
tor, the nurse and the teacher know better. Motherhood per se 
—the bearing of a child, the nursing of a child—that belongs to 
every normal woman. The training of little children, the care 
which begins at the very cradle, is a social function, and not a 
sex function. Not every mother is, therefore, a teacher. But 
the teacher, the high-grade, trained, specialized teacher who loves 
children, not merely her own, the care of such teachers should be 
given to every body. 

Now, we will say, how is that to be done. How can it be 
done? We still think of the home, each one separate and apart, 
with the mother and the children, but the father can go to his 
work and the mother can go to her work. She can take the baby 
with her and leave it at the “nursery school,” which somebody 


139 


COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH 


spoke of this morning, while she is at work. I think every 
woman should be able to take a year off for each baby. Even 
the working women, when they are organized, can do it and pay 
for it themselves. The trouble with them is that they are alone; 
are separate; they do not have one another’s help and they 
never can until they are united as men have united. 

Now, those are the main points I wish to give, that the 
strength of woman should be conserved, by legislation, by im¬ 
proving conditions, by improving wages, by the training of all 
the girls, training them in hygiene and all the suitable exercises. 
We all agree to that. But the biggest problem is how to estab¬ 
lish a standard of health and happiness for the woman who 
works at home, who works the twelve, fourteen and sixteen 
hours a day, who does not sleep well at night, with the care of 
the babies and children, and who never gets any rest from it 
unless she breaks down completely and then has to go away from 
home for a rest. 

If we had every one trained to specialize in some preferred 
branch of the work, every kind would be important. The stand¬ 
ard of cooking, the standard of our food service—and the doc¬ 
tors know how low that is at present—would be raised through 
that specialization. 

The standard of child care would be raised and, again the 
doctors know how low that standard is at home. All the stand¬ 
ards of life are lifted when you lift the woman, when her 
strength is saved and spent in the right channels, in the best 
service that she herself prefers. Those who prefer to cook, let 
them cook and be well paid for it, work eight hours a day, stop 
and go home. Those who prefer to be house-cleaners, let them 
run cleaning establishments and make a handsome living from 
it. Those who really like the care of babies enough to give their 
lives to it should give their lives to it and study and learn for 
the first time how to take care of little children. At present 
we say we must teach the mothers, and what are we to teach 
them and where are we to learn? I think some women care 
enough for children to devote their whole lives to the care of 
babies. There should be some method for collecting data from 
which to establish the science of child culture. We do not know 
it now. 


140 


GHOSTS WHAT AIN’T 


by 


C. A. PROSSER 





“ Ghosts What Ain’t” 


By 

C. A. Prosser 


An address given before Students 
of Dunwoody Institute, Minneapolis. 


In a little book called “Ghosts What Ain’t/’ Ellis Parker 
Butler tells the story of a little negro boy whose mother sent 
him after dark to get a pumpkin which she needed for a jack- 
o-lantern at a party. He was dreadfully frightened as he went 
down a lonely road past a graveyard to the pumpkin field. A 
big ghost rising up before him and holding a pumpkin in its 
hand pointed to it and said to little George, “There’s your head.” 
He was so frightened that the ghost took pity on him and said, 
“Never mind little boy, there ain’t no ghosts.” 

As he went on down the road he picked up a stick but an¬ 
other ghost seized it and said, “I’ve got hold of your leg.” Lit¬ 
tle George was so scared he began to cry and the ghost taking 
pity on him said, “Never mind little boy, there ain’t no ghosts.” 
Then, many, many fearsome ghosts arose all around him on the 
way to the pumpkin field and all the way back. They terrified 
him but every time he started to cry, they said, “Never mind little 
boy—remember there ain’t no such things as ghosts.” 

Finally he brought the pumpkin home. His mammy made 
a jack-o-lantem and had the party but little George would not go 
to bed. She said, “Go to bed, Honey,” but he lingered. Finally 
she laughed and said, for he had told her about the ghosts and 
what they said, “George, are you afraid there is ghosts?” He 
said, “No Mammy, I ain’t afraid of ghosts what is but I am scared 
of ghosts what ain’t.” 

Most of us, like George, are afraid in this world not of real 
ghosts but of “ghosts what ain’t.” We are not as boys and men 
afraid of the things that we can see and feel and face and fight 
if necessary but rather of the things that are imaginary that 
have no real existence that grow up out of our imagination. 
Sometimes these imaginary ghosts what ain’t become so real 
as to handicap a fellow in his life. 

We accept the risks and difficulties in our sports and our 
work with courage and as a matter of course—victory, defeat, 


143 


GHOSTS WHAT AIN’T 


accidents, sickness, death, loss of a job, hard times, financial 
reverses and all the rest. Anyone worth his salt faces these 
things as he should with a heart unafraid. These are neverthe¬ 
less very very real ghosts, or things, and Dunwoody helps its 
student to meet and conquer them. 

The “ghosts what ain’t” are the ones that give us real 
trouble and sometimes make cowards of us because like the 
little negro boy they are the very unreal ghosts of which we need 
not be afraid, but of which we are really most afraid. There are 
so many of these imaginary ghosts that it would be impossible 
to list all of them, but several at least we know. They are the 
unreal ghosts of our fears and doubts about life and about our¬ 
selves. 

One of the ghosts that a fellow needs to drive out of his mind 
forever is lack of faith in himself. Many men fail because from 
their boyhood they have gained no confidence in themselves and 
in what they could do. Sometimes they have met with dis¬ 
couragements ; sometimes they have had a hard struggle; some¬ 
times perhaps they are just naturally lazy; too many times 
they have never had anybody to buck them up by encouraging 
them and by praising the little things they did and did well. 

The truth about the whole matter is that confidence has a 
lot to do with your success in life. The coward, the discour¬ 
aged fellow, the man who is too timid, the fellow who does not 
believe in himself, is likely to give up too easily and settle down 
to an easy place in life because he fears to venture or because 
he does not think it worth while to try to make something out of 
himself. The slogan of such people is usually, “What’s the use? 

V I can’t do anything and I am no good anyhow.” 

As a matter of fact there is very little difference in the 
l ' ability of most people. When you see the great gap between 
people later in life, it looks as though they must be vastly differ¬ 
ent in their ability but they are not. The difference in the suc¬ 
cess with which they have met is more often due to other quali¬ 
ties: Courage, pluck, persistence, determination, application, 
energy, taking advantage of the main chance when it comes 
along. 

Show me a boy who has ordinary ability, who believes in 
himself without being cocky, who has a lot of self-confidence 
without being boastful or unpleasant about it and I will show 
you a fellow who is going to get ahead in the world. The best 
ball player, however good he may be in native ability to play the 
game, who has no confidence in himself in the field or at the bat 
will never be much of a ball player. This is equally true of 
life. 


144 


GHOSTS WHAT AIN’T 


Another ghost what ain’t is lack of faith in the world. You 
hear a great deal of talk which is sheer nonsense that there is 
no chance in the world for a man. There never were so many 
chances. Others who have failed to make good have set up 
as an alibi that there is no chance for a poor boy to get ahead, 
but most of the conspicuous successes in this democracy in 
every line have been made by the poor boy who found a way 
out for himself or who made it by sheer force, plus pluck and 
persistence. 

There never was a time in all the history of this good old 
world when there were so many chances or when employers were 
so eager to find and to reward capable, loyal and efficient ser¬ 
vice. For whatever opportunities there were in America in 
the days of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, there are 
10,000 opportunities today. 

Another ghost that you need to lay forever is the hope, that 
in some way you can succeed in the world without paying the 
price. There are perhaps a few fortunate persons who can suc¬ 
ceed by mere cunning or good fortune but they are so few that 
every time you see one of them you wonder how it happened. 

The American boy is too likely to be a gambler with chance. 
The odds are a thousand to one against him when he gambles 
that he can get ahead in the world without training, without 
study, without application, without energy, without industry, 
without the things that everybody else has to be and to do to 
“make good.” 

Indeed it is amazing that the same chap who will give hours 
and hours of work to the practice necessary to gain skill in some 
sport like skating, tennis, basketball, baseball, football or any 
other competitive games believe that anything but success, bet¬ 
ter wages, and promotion will come in the great big competitive 
game called life without paying the same price. 


145 



PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION 
FOR WOMEN 


by 


FLORENCE KELLEY 









Progress of Legislation for Women 

by 

Florence Kelley 


An address given in 1923 before Na¬ 
tional Conference of Social Work. 


Thirty years ago this month, in Illinois, in 1893, the first 
eight-hour law for women in this country was adopted by the 
exertions of the trade unions and settlements, led by Hull House. 
It was enforced, as thoroughly as a law could be enforced, in the 
third greatest manufacturing state of this union by twelve in¬ 
spectors charged with innumerable duties, including the inspec¬ 
tion of every tenement house in the state in which, perchance, 
a garment might be produced for sale. In May, 1895, the Su¬ 
preme Court of Illinois held that under the Fourteenth Amend¬ 
ment women, being citizens, could not be deprived of the right 
to work unlimited hours. The court was a rural one. One 
lonely judge among nine represented the city of Chicago, then, 
as now, the second great manufacturing city in the Western 
Hemisphere. The court, I will be briefer than it was, in nine 
thousand words defined its position, explaining that women were 
citizens although there were four minor derogations upon their 
citizenship. It said: “Women cannot be allowed to work in 
mines underground as men can; they cannot be called to the 
militia as men can; if they own farms, they cannot work out 
their taxes upon the roads as men can; and they vote only once 
in four years for three trustees of the University of Illinois.” 
In spite, however, of these four derogations upon their citizen¬ 
ship, they cannot be deprived of their right to contract to work 
as they and their employers may agree. 

That judicial opinion was the law of Illinois for fifteen years. 
So paralyzing was its effect that, in the Mississippi Valley and 
far to the east and west, no state attempted to deal with hours, 
or wages, until Oregon, in 1907, defying this evil precedent, 
adopted a ten-hour law for women. According to the decision 
of the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the Oregon 
ten-hour law in 1908, the Illinois decision in 1895 had been 
wrong! The principle at issue in both cases was identical. In 
his defense of that Oregon law, before the Supreme Court, of 
the United States, Justice Brandeis, then a practicing lawyer in 
Boston, created a new hope for wage earning women. He actecj 
upon his belief that ignorance of the social aspects of industry 


149 


PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN 


alone had misled the Supreme Court of Illinois. He was con¬ 
vinced that, if the social facts of industry could be presented to 
the courts of last resort, it might become possible for the United 
States to take its place among the civilized nations. (There is 
nothing to laugh at in that! England had been enforcing such 
laws since 1844. We should rather hang our heads in shame 
while the memory remains of that Illinois decision of 1895 and 
the years that followed.) Mr. Brandeis’ hope was justified. 
From 1907-16 he gave his priceless services in defense of legisla¬ 
tion for the welfare of wage-earning women and girls before 
courts of last resort. 

The Consumers’ League which, about four years after the 
appearance of Dr. Ryan’s book on “The Living Wage,” intro¬ 
duced the legislative movement for minimum wage commissions, 
furnished comprehensive briefs in support of the legal arguments 
which followed. Industrial welfare statutes for women were 
upheld by the courts, even a California eight-hour law applying 
to those pitiful victims of overwork, pupil nurses in training in 
hospitals, public and private. There were upheld in nine years 
the ten-hour law in Oregon, and many other states, the nine- 
hour day, the working week of fifty-four hours, and one day’s 
rest in seven. To assure a period of rest at night for wage¬ 
earning women, the Court of Appeals of New York reversed in 
1914 its adverse decision of 1907. In 1917 the Supreme Court 
of the United States upheld the Oregon ten-hour law for women, 
and allowed the decision of the Oregon court to stand in support 
of a minimum-wage law. 

The anti-climax in the District of Columbia minimum-wage 
case shows conclusively that that interval without progress, that 
stagnant period from 1895-1908, may now come again unless 
the voters determine that it shall never be repeated. The deci¬ 
sion in itself is progress backward. Its effect was immediate con¬ 
fusion in the state legislatures in session on April 11, and since 
that date. It obliterated a workable and necessary law for free¬ 
ing wage-earning women in the district of Columbia from the 
“lash of starvation.” This is the expression used by English 
economists to describe the position of the English wage earning 
class before the establishment, in 1910, of trade boards (so mini¬ 
mum wage boards for men and women are called in England,) 
under which 3,000,000 English wage-earners are, according to 
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, freed from that lash. I do not at¬ 
tempt to condense or to quote or to summarize that decision. It 
fills eighteen pages of print. Briefly, trenchantly, Chief Justice 
Taft and Justice Holmes have stated their dissent. Never in the 
long history of judicial interpretation of the Constitution was 
greater need of dissent, nor was ever dissent more brilliant than 
this recorded by pen in mortal hand. I command it to your care¬ 
ful reading. 


150 


PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN 


Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal 
Constitution as now interpretated by the court, it is idle to seek 
to assure by orderly processes of legislation, to wage-earning 
men, women or children, life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. 
This decision fills those words with the bitterest and most cruel 
mockery. Following it, wages of the most ill-paid women in 
the District of Columbia have been cut. Under the pressure of 
competition in American industry at this time, it establishes in 
the practical experience of the unorganized, the unskilled, the 
illiterate, the alien, and the industrially sub-normal women wage- 
earners, the constitutional right to starve. This is a new “Dred 
Scott” decision. 

What is to be done? Are the women of the United States 
to sit again in the company of the women of Patagonia and the 
Islands of the Sea as human beings without claim to legal pro¬ 
tection of life, and health, and continued capacity for work? 
Does anyone believe that they will do that? Have we forgotten 
that the most important labor law ever passed never mentioned 
labor? That is the constitutional amendment which gives to 
working women, and to all other women, the right to vote. It is 
by far the most important labor law concerning women that ever 
has been or ever can be passed. It is the law which gives to 
half of the people of this nation the power to register their will 
and their conscience. 

Two things must be done, and conferences about them have 
already begun. One called by the Consumers’ League has been 
held in New York, to which people came from the Pacific Coast 
and from states whose minimum-wage laws are, perhaps, en¬ 
dangered, to consider how their laws may be safeguarded, and 
how the right to legislate may be saved for states which have not 
yet experimented with the industrial welfare measures. Here 
in Washington a conference called by the Women’s Trade Union 
League to consider next steps agreed upon effort, greater than 
has ever been made, to organize wage-earning women in unions, 
that they may do for themselves all that trade-union organization 
can to improve wages and hours. But more must be done than 
that. 


This conference is fifty years old. The organization I have 
the honor to represent entered its twenty-fifth year on the first 
day of this month. We cannot look forward to fighting over 
again the battles fought in 1893, getting beneficent state laws 
only to have them swept away. We new voters must bring a 
longer view and more hopeful hearts into the voting constituency 
than have been there in the past. We must bring more imagina¬ 
tion, more initiative, and corrective action with less delay than 
fifteen years. In earlier days we endured outrageous delay be¬ 
cause we had not suffrage and in part, also, because of the virtual¬ 
ly universal belief that the Constitution of the United States 


151 


PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN 


could be amended only after a war. It had been drafted and had 
received ten amendments following the Revolution. After the 
Civil War came two, so perversely interpreted ever since. The 
Fourteenth Amendment, intended to preserve life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness for colored people, has not been allowed 
to do that. Since its adoption Negroes have been burned, hanged, 
robbed, and disfranchised, while the amendment has been used 
to block industrial legislation for women, girls and children, 
white and colored alike. 

Now, therefore, at the close of this first quarter of the 
twentieth century, our eighteenth century Constitution, the old¬ 
est in force in the world, adopted when we were 3,000,000 rural 
people, must be expanded to meet the needs of 103,000,000 peo¬ 
ple struggling with the difficulties of our urban civilization with 
its new industrial demands upon women and children. We have 
to modernize the Constitution to meet the needs of our own 
century, and to modernize the court that interprets the Consti¬ 
tution. Until this is done, discussion of industrial legislation 
is purely academic. 

The lesson of the years from 1895—April 11, 1923, is clear. 
The progress of labor legislation in the United States depends, 
not upon public opinion, not upon Congress and the states, not 
upon the needs of the wage-earners or the development of in¬ 
dustry. The progress of labor legislation depends upon the per¬ 
sonnel of the Supreme Court of the United States and the social 
and economic opinion of the judges. The court incarnates a 
world-old injustice. It has dealt with the whole people, but it 
has represented only half of the people. We have seen two child- 
labor laws destroyed. No woman had any share in that destruc¬ 
tion, or opportunity to stay it. We have seen the minimum-wage 
laws of thirteen states endangered by the recent decision. No 
woman participated in that responsibility. Sooner or later 
women must be added to the court. The monopoly of the inter¬ 
pretation and administration of the law by men alone can never 
again be accepted without criticism and protest. It is a survival 
of the age before women were full citizens. In view of its 
powers, unique in the world, the personnel of the Supreme Court 
of the United States is of the uttermost permanent importance 
to this nation. Yet in the choice of judges, political affiliations, 
religious associations, and geographical position all have great 
weight. It is a singular circumstance that judicial experience 
is not requisite; even presiding justices have been chosen with¬ 
out reference to it. Urgent, therefore, as is the modernizing 
of the Constitution, the personnel of the court is the first es¬ 
sential. 

The justices are too few. They are compelled either to give 
inadequate study to the new, complex, vital questions constantly 
referred to them, or to defer their decisions and thereby inflict 


152 


PROGRESS OF LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN 


unmeasured hardship. From 1915-1917, inclusive, when the Ore¬ 
gon ten-hour and minimum-wage laws were pending, the court 
pondered twenty-eight months before, in the end, both were al¬ 
lowed to stand. Nine men cannot deal with the mass of cases 
that are constantly piled up before it. So we see one hour given 
to each side for oral argument and when validity of laws of 
many states is involved, three hours, all-told, perhaps allotted 
for the oral discussion of a measure of the utmost gravity for 
the well-being of the mass of wage-earning women in the United 
States. The court must be enlarged. Henceforth, decisions can¬ 
not depend upon the vote of one justice. This nation cannot en¬ 
dure having the life, health, and welfare of millions of workers 
determined by the odd justice, the fifth justice. The District of 
Columbia law was constitutional in 1921, when Justice Pitney 
and Day were on the Bench. It may be constitutional again by 
1927. The fate of the workers of this country cannot depend 
upon such incidents. 

If, therefore, we are to make progress forward, not back¬ 
ward, we cannot merely repeat the long experiment which Jus¬ 
tice Brandeis successfully led throughout nine years only to have 
it checked last month. We have a larger task than has ever con¬ 
fronted us. We have to modernize the Constitution and to mod¬ 
ernize the Supreme Court, if, as a people, we are to go continu¬ 
ously forward. 


153 





FACTORIES AND THE 
COMMON LIFE 


by 


ALLAN T. BURNS 




Factories and the Common Life 


By 

Allan T. Burns 


An address before the National Con¬ 
ference of Social Work. 


Max Weinberg runs a vest shop in a great clothing center. 
It is not a shop for which he is entirely responsible, for it is a 
contract shop. He takes goods that have been out at a great 
factory and is responsible for only their manufacture, not for 
their sale. And in this contract shop, in the words in Pinafore, 
he employs his brothers and his sisters and his cousins and his 
aunts, and a great many others, good friends and neighbors. In 
that market and in this shop advanced union conditions prevail. 
But Mr. Weinberg prides himself that he has never had a case 
brought before the industrial tribunal of that market because 
of his treatment of any of his employees. Not even the most 
violent agitation of the most violent agitator has ever persuaded 
one of these cousins or aunts to bring a case. He would much 
rather, and feels he has found it much more effective, deal with 
these good relatives and neighbors on the old basis of a common 
understanding, under which they brought their grievances and 
exchanged points of view. But growth and development have 
come to that industry in that market, and in order to bid success¬ 
fully and economically, in competition with the so-called inside 
shops of the greater factories, Mr. Weinberg has had to enlarge 
his production so that the little shop in which the aunts and 
uncles work has not room nor the workers necessary to turn out 
enough of a product to enable him to bid successfully. So some 
of the work he has begun to send into the homes of his neighbors. 
At this the union has brought in a complaint, for by the agree¬ 
ment under which he operates all clothing must be made in the 
home. Mr. Weinberg’s plea is that he did not know any other 
way to get the clothing made than to depend upon his little com¬ 
munity of people. There is no place in which to build a larger 
shop unless he builds in a place so far removed from the neigh¬ 
borhood where his workers live that it would break up this com¬ 
munity which has been a community both of social life and indus¬ 
trial operation. And yet nothing is more certain than that Mr. 
Weinberg’s shop and the closely knit community are bound to go. 

Everybody realizes in this market that the small contract 
shop around which center the domestic and industrial interest 


157 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


of its workers is doomed because of the competition of the larger 
factories, and that sooner or later these brothers and sisters and 
cousins and aunts will be daily leaving their local community— 
community in the sense of the district in which they live—seek¬ 
ing employment in the larger factories remote from their homes, 
and modern industry with that will have completed its work of 
destroying local community life. 

Political reformers and social workers in their efforts to 
resuscitate and reinvigorate community life are facing some such 
doom as Mr. Weinberg and his vest factory. For more of our 
efforts are based on the idea that community of residence is 
bound to be co-existent with community of interest and of action. 
We recall our backbreaking and heartbreaking attempts to revive 
the little red schoolhouse and the old New England town meeting 
upon this assumption, and to our chagrin again and again we 
would call this group of people living on the block together only 
to find that those who were there were so addicted to attending 
meetings they could not stay awake in our presence and the rest 
of those who ought to be interested in our public-spirited effort 
were conspicuous by their absence. When a hundred years ago 
a great Englishman came over here to study our experiment with 
democracy, he found all the interests of human life co-existent 
with the small local community, that a man’s work, recreational, 
religious, and family life fell within a small circle within which 
he could spend his entire time, and so we have more or less as¬ 
sumed, and the whole machinery of political life has been based 
upon the assumption that there is bound to be co-existence be¬ 
tween our place of residence and our vital interests. 

Whether we think of the precinct, or the ward, the assembly 
district, or the congressional district, from the bottom up or 
from the top down, we have political machinery based upon 
geographical divisions. But this assumption that community 
interest will co-exist with one’s residence has brought deep disap¬ 
pointment to us in many of our experiences. In the first place we 
no longer find single communities far removed from other single 
communities. There was a time when the farmer, in the spirit 
of the American pioneer, said “I must move on now for I have 
a neighbor within ten miles.” 

The general futility of our efforts at political life rest upon 
the breakdown brought about by modern industry. I have seen 
whole wards of our most respectable citizens canvassed, only to 
find that 50 per cent were not registered and were out of com¬ 
munication with the district in which they were supposed to have 
their vital interests. Last winter I went to a city club where 
there were about 200 members present, and I dared to venture 
the question as to how many there had taken an active part in 
securing the results of the last election in the precinct. There 
were five who raised their hands. They were greatly interested 


158 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


in the theory, greatly interested in discussing things generally, 
but somehow grouped for political action in ways in which they 
could not put their theories into practise, it seemed impossible 
for them to function effectively. Can it be that the game we 
continually play with the politician is bound to be a losing one 
for us because we try to act in groupings that have lost their 
real meaning except for those who make their living by per¬ 
petuating it ? 

This breaking up of the local community groups, based not 
primarily on residence but co-existent with residence, accounts 
for some of the other weaknesses of our present civilization. 
America is said to be in contrast to almost all other modern coun¬ 
tries, the graveyard of repeated co-operative efforts. The at¬ 
tempts to buy the necessities of life upon the basis of profit to 
none but of service to all have met with repeated failure because 
there is in the local community no such actual confidence, no such 
common taste, no such ability to make a common effort, as have 
made possible those most successful efforts in Europe. So, as 
Professor Lindeman has already called to your attention, the 
word “local” in labor organizations has come to have a different 
meaning, and the weakness of labor organization is due to the 
fact that they have not adjusted their organization to a recog¬ 
nition that the groups they call “locals” are based upon geo¬ 
graphical residence, and that what is needed is a larger and con¬ 
solidated organization of a city-, state-, or nationwide character. 

The I. W. W. is one of the by-products of this situation. The 
migrant laborer, finding no place for him in the orthodox form 
of organizations, has been attracted to the I. W. W. because it is 
founded not upon geographical basis but upon their common 
interest. But more important to us than these breakdowns in 
the industrial fields is the breakdown of community morals. You 
have heard through the reports of the Cleveland Crime Survey 
that offenses are increasing thirty times more rapidly than the 
population, and the newspapers are full of the stories of the in¬ 
crease of crimes. We are faced with the daily recounting of the 
unaccountable flappers and flippers and shifters. Why is it all? 
Because the fundamental basis of character and behavior, the 
morale of the local community, is gone, and that support and re¬ 
inforcement and incentive to good behavior is gone with it. The 
only inaccuracy about the word “shifter” is that at present it 
seems to be applied to a group of rather young persons whose 
more or less loose organization is troubling their elders, while it 
would be more accurate if we recognized that the word applies to 
us all. These are some of the effects of modern industry upon 
community life, thinking of the community as a collective whole, 
a unit. 

We all view things from our personal point of vantage, and 
that colors my own thinking probably, but between being the 


159 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


son of a minister and myself a social worker, it has been my lot 
to live in seven of the nine largest cities of the country and in 
the national capital. I have been a migrant worker. How can 
such a one belong to a local community ? And yet in every com¬ 
munity in which such a worker lives there is a group of people 
of common mind and common interest. It is not because you 
live in this street or that, but because you are bound to seek out 
those with whom you will be congenial and with whom you may 
co-operate to a common end. The little personal experience is 
borne out by the most conclusive studies. 

The last United States census says that of all the native- 
born population in the United States about one-fourth live in 
states in which they were not born. In other words, they are 
shifters. Here in Rhode Island your percentage is about the 
average. The percentage in Wyoming runs up to 70. No one 
knows whether that is unusual or not compared with other coun¬ 
tries, but it reflects a great degree of shifting among our popu¬ 
lation. It is due primarily to occupation, to our search to find 
jobs that are more remunerative or more to our taste. There 
is one indication in the last Massachusetts census of 1915. Here 
the native-born are usually shifty, for that census showed that 
twice as many of the native-born were disqualified for voting as 
the foreign-born because they were not long enough in residence 
in a given district. We Americans are primarily shifters. If 
we think of our greatest industry, the largest employer of labor 
in the country, the United States Steel Corporation, with its over 
500,000 employees, we will realize how true it is that industry 
is no respecter of communities. Do you realize that during the 
last few years we have had more immigrants return to the old 
countries than we have had come into ours, a situation never 
known before in the world’s history? This was due largely to 
fluctuations in the demand for employment in the United States 
Steel Corporation and other such great places of employment. 
It is the coming and going, the ebb and flow of the tide, that 
make it almost impossible that people shall take root in local 
communities and the fact that the breaking up of the community 
has been recognized by such employers as did not wish to have 
too much of that sort of thing, and they have cultivated such 
a mixture of people, bringing them from here and there, from 
across the water, from the rural districts of the United States, 
that there may not have been long enough continuity of common 
residence for them to make common cause. 

The labor organizations of the country are recognizing this 
in their insistence that their organizations, while including all 
local workers, shall be based upon a country-wide consolidation. 
When the labor leaders that called the late steel strike did so 
they called not only steel workers, but men organized in the pack¬ 
ing industry of Chicago, and the maintenance of way workers 


160 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


on our railroads, who realized that the wages of the steel work¬ 
ers had a bearing on the wages of those in the packing and other 
great industries and that there was a community of interest here, 
whether or not there were community of residence or of occu¬ 
pation, that required they make common cause. And when Mr. 
Gary said that it was utterly against the principles of America 
for those not engaged in an industry and living in a distant local¬ 
ity to do anything about conditions in the steel industry he was 
like old King Canute trying to set the bounds of the incoming 
tide. Just at the time when he said that, I took pains to analyze 
the membership of the directorate of the United States Steel 
Corporation and found it composed as follows: a representa¬ 
tive of the International Harvester Company, a representative 
of a coal mining corporation in Pennsylvania, a representative 
of a great coal and steel carrying railroad from Philadelphia, 
an eminent jurist from the city of Pittsburgh, the president of 
a great national bank in New York, and so down the line. There 
was no appeal of community interest by common residence, but 
there was a group who had gained a community of interest be¬ 
cause of interlocking relations in a great variety of fields of life. 
And that is the climax of the development of industry in this 
country. There is apparently utter disregard for the local com¬ 
munity in the organization of industry itself. That is the future 
of Max Weinberg’s vest shop. They are all going the same way, 
if industry works its will with them as it has with the steel 
workers. 

So has industry, by making nomads of us all, destroyed our 
local community life. And then along comes the great by-prod¬ 
uct and handmaiden of industry, the press, and facilitates that 
movement, for with the scattering of the population over the 
face of the land has gone all of that interest in the news of the 
locality which first established our great journals. It is no 
longer the near, but the novel that makes the news. 

No such dark and dismal picture concludes all that is to be 
said on the subject. If we are hopeless under such circumstance, 
it is because we do not realize the original foundations of our 
community life. It was accidental although inevitable that that 
strong community spirit by which our early life in this country 
was characterized coincided with communities. We had no trans¬ 
portation, practically no communication, and for that reason vital 
fundamental interests coincided with geographical lines. It is 
that internal vital interest that will give us through community 
life again, or a substitute in its place, for all over our country 
today we see new groupings based upon intercommunication and 
co-operation for common ends whether in labor organizations, in 
social workers’ associations, banking clubs, bar associations, 
medical societies. People are regrouping themselves according 
to the lines of their vital interests. 


161 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


All these groups, to be sure, will come to have their local 
foci and nuclei, but we need to realize as social workers that the 
underlying forces of the grouping bring us opportunities, for 
upon them we may base our relations to them. It is absolutely 
necessary that there be revived these small groupings in order to 
have a revival in democracy for meeting modern industrial and 
other problems. If we are impatient with the slowness with 
which these new groups learn to function democratically we 
~\eed to remember that it took a hundred and fifty years to learn 
» operate those of local communities that finally made up these 
United States. The state of Rhode Island was founded by a re¬ 
volt from town meeting. Shay’s rebellion, the tariff wars, were 
all instances of how long and how slow and how gradual a growth 
it was before these groupings along geographical lines, but 
founded upon community of interest, learned to function effec¬ 
tively enough to make these United States. De Tocqueville de¬ 
scribes how the old town meeting was primarily the school of 
American self-government. We need to ask ourselves what is 
to be the substitute for it. 


We never learned self-government out of books. That would 
be like trying to learn to sail a boat out of a book, as I once 
tried to do. It was not till I felt the tug of the sheet and the 
pull of the tiller that I learned how to sail a boat. So it is with 
new groupings, the most precious development of our modern 
life. In every one of them people are attempting to do some self- 
governing. The lessons our forefathers learned in town meetings 
we are learning over again in the groups which represent a com¬ 
mon interest, a common aim. We need to learn the lessons of 
patience and of co-operation. You will remember that at the 
Milwaukee Conference a year ago there was a young labor leader 
who has helped to devise what is perhaps the most interesting 
attempt toward industrial peace, and that he outlined that plan 
to us. It has been my privilege during the past year to work 
with him in the operation of the great school of democracy, and 
tonight in the minds of some I stand as a victim, decapitated by 
that machinery, because we are only in the learning stage. That 
plan was developed in times of prosperity, and the methods of 
operating in times of adversity have not yet been worked out. It 
is only history repeating itself. We learn very slowly this lesson 
of self-government, but it must be learned in no other way than 
through these natural groupings of those whose common inter¬ 
ests lead them to common action. The most successful efforts 
we have to report have recognized this principle. The National 
Child Labor Committee has been as successful as it has because 
it has affiliated with natural groups, those of labor organizations 
as well as those of public spirited employers and citizens who see 
that child labor must be abolished, but not primarily along geo¬ 
graphical lines. In the same way the American Association 
for Labor Legislation is winning success today because it affili- 


162 


FACTORIES AND THE COMMON LIFE 


ates and co-operates, not by trying to hold meetings in a given 
ward or other local community, but by seeking groups that have 
their own aims, and interesting them in its purposes. 

And so, fellow social workers, there is no ground for dis¬ 
couragement. Democracy will be revived. It is for us to be wise 
enough and far-sighted enough to realize that it needs transfor¬ 
mation, that it needs a new development. If we can see that the 
old geographical lines coincided with the interests of men, and 
that the new groupings will be along lines of intercommunica¬ 
tions and co-operation for a common end we may perhaps have 
found the clue to the new democracy of the twentieth century. 


163 



THE NEW SOUTH 


by 


HENRY GRADY 









» 










The New South 


by 

Henry Grady 


On the 21st of December, 1886, Mr. 
Grady, in response to an urgent in¬ 
vitation, delivered the following ad¬ 
dress at the Banquet of the New Eng¬ 
land Club, New York. 


“There was a South of slavery and secession—that South 
is dead. There is a South of union and freedom—that South, 
thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour.” These 
words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, 
at Tammany Hall, in 1866, true then and truer now, I shall make 
my text tonight. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: Let me express to you my 
appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to address 
you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, for I feel 
that if, when I raise my provincial voice in this ancient and 
august presence, I could find courage for no more than the open¬ 
ing sentence, it would be well if in that sentence I had met in 
a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and had perished, so to 
speak, with courtesy on my lips and grace in my heart. Per¬ 
mitted, through your kindness, to catch my second wind, let me 
say that I appreciate the significance of being the first South¬ 
erner to speak at this board, which bears the substance, if it sur¬ 
passes the semblance, of original New England hospitality—and 
honors the sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my 
personality is lost, and the compliment to my people made plain. 

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy tonight. I am 
not troubled about those from whom I come. You remember the 
man whose wife sent him to a neighbor with a pitcher of milk, 
and whom tripping on the top step, fell with such casual inter¬ 
ruptions as the landings afforded into the basement, and, while 
picking himself up, had the pleasure of hearing his wife call out: 
“John, did you break the pitcher?” 

“No, I didn’t,” said John, “but I’ll be dinged if I don’t.” 

So, while those who call me from behind may inspire me 
with energy, if not with courage, I ask an indulgent hearing 
from you. I beg that you will bring your full faith in American 


167 


THE NEW SOUTH 


fairness and frankness to judgment upon what I shall say. There 
was an old preacher once who told some boys of the Bible lesson 
he was going to read in the morning. The boys, finding the 
place, glued together the connecting pages. The next morning 
he read on the bottom of one page, “When Noah was one hun¬ 
dred and twenty years old he took unto himself a wife, who was” 
—then turning the page—“140 cubits long—40 cubits wide, built 
of gopher wood—and covered with pitch inside and out.” He 
was naturally puzzled at this. He read it again, verified it, and 
then said: “My friends, this is the first time I ever met this in 
the Bible, but I accept this as an evidence of the assertion that 
we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” If I could get you to 
hold such faith tonight I could proceed cheerfully to the task 
I otherwise approach with a sense of consecration. 

Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for the sole 
purpose of getting into the volumes that go out annually 
freighted with the rich eloquence of your speakers—the fact that 
the Cavalier as well as the Puritan was on the continent in its 
early days, and that he was “up and able to be about.” I have 
read your books carefully and I find no mention of that fact, 
which seems to me an important one for preserving a sort of his¬ 
torical equilibrium if for nothing else. 

Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier first chal¬ 
lenged France on the continent—that Cavalier, John Smith, gave 
New England its very name, and was so pleased with the job 
that he has been handing his own name around ever since—and 
that while Miles Standish was cutting off men’s ears for courting 
a girl without her parents’ consent, and forbade men to kiss their 
wives on Sunday, the Cavalier was courting everything in sight, 
and that the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the 
Cavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as full as the 
nests in the woods. 

But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in your 
charming little books, I shall let him work out his own salvation, 
as he has always done, with engaging gallantry, and we will hold 
no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? Neither Puri¬ 
tan nor Cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and good 
traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration of their 
sons and the saving of the old fashion. But both Puritan and 
Cavalier were lost in the storm of the first Revolution, and the 
American citizen, supplanting both and stronger than either, 
took possession of the republic bought by their common blood 
and fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men 
government and establishing the voice of the people as the voice 
of God. 


168 


THE NEW SOUTH 


My friends, Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical 
American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has already 
come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and 
fruit. But from the union of these colonists, Puritans and Cava¬ 
liers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing 
of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who 
stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended 
within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty 
and grace of this republic—Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum 
of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the 
virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of 
both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cava¬ 
lier, in that he was American, and that in his honest form were 
first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal govern¬ 
ment—charging it with such tremendous meaning and elevating 
it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously 
aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life, consecrated from the cra¬ 
dle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and 
honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands the type of this 
simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored, and in our 
common glory as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for 
your forefathers and for mine. 

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master’s hand, the 
picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the 
pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching 
with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation’s 
eyes! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army 
that sought its home at the close of the late war—an army that 
marched home in defeat and not in victory—in pathos and not 
in splendor, but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as 
loving as ever welcomed heroes home! Let me picture to you 
the footsore Confederate soldier, as buttoning up in his faded 
gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his chil¬ 
dren of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southwards from 
Appomatox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, 
heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to 
exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his com¬ 
rades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the 
last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray 
cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What 
does he find—let me ask you who went to your homes eager to 
find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four 
years’ sacrifice—what does he find when, having followed the 
battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death 
not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so 
prosperous and beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farm 
devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his 
trade destroyed, his money worthless, his sytem, feudal in its 
magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status; 


169 


THE NEW SOUTH 


„ his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his 
shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone. 
Without money, credit, employment, material, or training; and 
beside all this confronted with the gravest problem that ever 
met human intelligence—the establishing of a status for the 
vast body of his liberated slaves. 

What does he do—this hero in gray with a heart of gold? 
Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. 
Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired 
him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelm¬ 
ing, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the 
trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns 
marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human 
blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women 
reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for 
their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women 
always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little 
bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. 
“Bill Arp/' struck the key-note when he said: “Well, I killed 
as many of them as they did of me, and now I’m going to work." 
Of the soldier returning home after defeat and roasting some 
corn on the roadside, who made the remark to his comrades: 
“You may leave the South if you want to, but I am going to 
Sandersville, kiss my wife and raise a crop, and if the Yankees 
fool with me any more, I’ll whip them again." I want to say 
to General Sherman, who is considered an able man in our parts, 
though some people think he is a kind of careless man about 
fire, that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a 
brave and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have caught 
the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have 
builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory. 

But what is the sum of our work? We have found out that 
in the summing up the free negro counts more than he did as a 
slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop and made 
it free to white and black. We have sowed towns and cities in 
the place of theories, and put business above politics. We have 
challenged your spinners in Massachusetts and your iron-makers 
in Pennsylvania. We have learned that the $4,000,000,000 an¬ 
nually received from our cottom crops will make us rich when 
the supplies that make it are home raised. We have reduced 
the commercial rate of interest from 24 to 6 per cent, and are 
floating 4 per cent bonds. We have learned that one northern 
immigrant is worth fifty foreigners; and have smoothed the path 
to southward, wiped out the place where Mason and Dixon’s line 
used to be, and hung out latchstring to you and yours. We have 
reached the point that marks perfect harmony in every house¬ 
hold, when the husband confesses that the pies which his wife 
cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake; and we ad¬ 
mit that the sun shines as brightly and the moon as softly as it 


170 


THE NEW SOUTH 


did before the war. We have established thrift in city and coun¬ 
try. We have fallen in love with work. We have restored com¬ 
fort to homes from which culture and elegance never departed. 
We have let economy take root and spread among us as rank as 
the crabgrass which sprang from Sherman’s cavalry camps, until 
we are ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee as he manufac¬ 
tures relics of the battlefield in a one-story shanty, and squeezes 
pure olive oil out of his cotton seed, against any down-easter 
that ever swapped wooden nutmegs for flannel sausage in the 
valleys of Vermont. Above all, we know that we have achieved 
in these “piping times of peace” a fuller independence for the 
South than that which our fathers sought to win in the forum 
by their eloquence or compel in the field by their swords. 

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, however humble, 
in this work. Never was nobler duty confided to human hands 
than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding 
South—misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and 
honest, brave and generous always. In the record of her social, 
industrial and political emancipation we await with confidence 
the verdict of the world. 

But what of the negro? Have we solved the problem he 
presents or progressed in honor and equity toward solution ? Let 
the records speak to the point. No section shows a more pros¬ 
perous laboring population than the negroes of the South, none 
in fuller sympathy with the employing and land-owning class. 
He shares our school fund, has the fullest protection of our laws 
and the friendship of our people. Self-interest, as well as honor, 
demand that he should have this. Our future, our very existence, 
depend upon our working out this problem in full and exact 
justice. We understand that when Lincoln signed the emancipa¬ 
tion proclamation, your victory was assured, for he then com¬ 
mitted you to the cause of human liberty, against which the arms 
of man cannot prevail—while those of our statesmen who trusted 
to make slavery the corner-stone of the Confederacy doomed 
us to defeat as far as they could, committing us to a cause that 
reason could not defend or the sword maintain in sight of ad¬ 
vancing civilization. 

Had Toombs said, which he did not say, “that he would call 
the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill,” he would have 
been foolish, for he might have known that whenever slavery be¬ 
came entangled in war it must perish, and that the chattel in 
human flesh ended forever in New England when your fathers— 
not to be blamed for parting with what didn’t pay—sold their 
slaves to our fathers—not to be praised for knowing a paying 
thing when they saw it. The relations of the southern people 
with the negro are close and cordial. We remember with what 
fidelity for four years he guarded our defenseless women and 
children, whose husbands and fathers were fighting against his 
freedom. To his eternal credit be it said that whenever he struck 


171 


THE NEW SOUTH 


a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at 
last he raised his black and humble hands that the shackles 
might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against 
his helpless charges, and worthy to be taken in loving grasp by 
every man who honors loyalty and devotion. Ruffians have 
maltreated him, rascals have misled him, philanthropists estab¬ 
lished a bank for him, but the South, with the North, protests 
against injustice to this simple and sincere people. To liberty 
and enfranchisement is as far as law can carry the negro. The 
rest must be left to conscience and common sense. It must be 
left to those among whom his lot is cast, with whom he is in¬ 
dissolubly connected, and whose prosperity depends upon their 
possessing his intelligent sympathy and confidence. Faith has 
been kept with him, in spite of calumnious assertions to the con¬ 
trary by those who assume to speak for us or by frank oppo¬ 
nents. Faith will be kept with him in the future, if the South 
holds her reason and integrity. 

But have we kept faith with you ? In the fullest sense, yes. 
When Lee surrendered—I don’t say when Johnson surrendered, 
because I understand he still alludes to the time when he met 
General Sherman last as the time when he determined to aban¬ 
don any further prosecution of the struggle—when Lee sur¬ 
rendered, I say, and Johnson quit, the South became, and has 
since been, loyal to this Union. We fought hard enough to know 
that we were whipped, and in perfect frankness accept as final 
the arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. The 
South found her jewel in the toad’s head of defeat. The shackles 
that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the 
shackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the old regime 
the negroes were slaves to the South; the South was a slave to 
the system. The old plantation, with its simple police regulations 
and feudal habit, was the only type possible under slavery. 
Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chivalric 
oligarchy the substance that should have been diffused among 
the people, as the rich blood, under certain artificial conditions, 
is gathered at the heart, filling that with affluent rapture but 
leaving the body chill and colorless. 

The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, 
unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy 
growth. The New South presents a perfect democracy, the 
oligarchs leading in the popular movement—a social system com¬ 
pact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but strong¬ 
er at the core—a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty 
homes for every palace and a diversified industry that meets the 
complex need of this complex age. 

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is 
stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander 
day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the conscious- 


172 


THE NEW SOUTH 


ness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, 
full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing 
the keen air and looking out upon the expanded horizon, she 
understands that her emancipation came because through the 
inscrutable wisdom of God her honest purpose was crossed, and 
her brave armies were beaten. 

This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The 
South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the 
late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion; rev¬ 
olution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as 
honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of 
the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain 
in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my 
native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central 
hill—a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a 
name dear to me above the names of men—that of a brave and 
simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the 
glories of New England from Plymouth Rock all the way, would 
I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier’s death. To the 
foot of that I shall send my children’s children to reverence him 
who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But sir, speaking 
from the shadow of that memory which I honor as I do nothing 
else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for 
which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom 
than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held 
the balance of battle in His Almighty hand and that human 
slavery was swept forever from American soil, and the American 
Union was saved from the wreck of war. 

This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated 
ground. Every foot of soil about the city in which I live is as 
sacred as a battle-ground of the republic. Every hill that invests 
it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for 
your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blow of those 
who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat—sacred soil to all 
of us—rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and 
better—silent but staunch witnesses in its red desolation of the- 
matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of 
American arms—speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace 
and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American States and 
the imperishable brotherhood of the American people. 

Now, what answer has New England to this message? Will 
she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts of the 
conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? 
Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in 
their hearts which never felt the generous ardor of conflict it 
may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained 
courtesy, the hand which straight from his soldier’s heart Grant 
offered to Lee at Appomatox? Will she make the vision of a 


173 


THE NEW SOUTH 


restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of 
your dying captain, filling his heart with grace; touching his lips 
with praise, and glorifying his path to the grave—will she make 
this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed 
a benediction, a cheat and delusion? If she does, the South, 
never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity 
its refusal; but if she does not refuse to accept in frankness 
and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will 
the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very society forty 
years ago amid tremendous applause, become true, be verified in 
its fullest sense, when he said: “Standing hand to hand and clasp¬ 
ing hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty 
years, citizens of the same country, members of the same govern¬ 
ment, united, all united now and united forever.” There have 
been difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you 
that in my judgment. 


“Those opened eyes, 

Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 
All of one nature, of one substance bred, 

Did lately meet in th’ intestine shock, 

Shall now in mutual well beseeming ranks, 
March all one way.” 


174 


FARMING 


by 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 





Farming 

by 

Robert G. Ingersoll 


An address given to an audience of 
farmers in Illinois more than a gen¬ 
eration ago. 


Ladies and Gentlemen: I am not an old and experienced 
farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons 
of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about 
cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground. 

I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all 
wealth, prosperity and luxury. I know that in a country where 
the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to 
be prosperous. 

The old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything 
was done the wrong way. It was all work and waste, weariness 
and want. They used to fence a hundred and sixty acres of land 
with a couple of dogs. Everything was left to the protection of 
the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake. 

When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred 
miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They 
would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two 
bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that would 
never draw and never did bake. 

In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. 
Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a 
pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms 
even with hunger. 

We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect con¬ 
tempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They 
had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded 
with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away 
and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is fuel. When the 
cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the 
corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual 
starvation. 

In those times most farmers thought the best place for the 
pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. There is noth¬ 
ing like sociability. 


177 


FARMING 


Women were supposed to know the art of making fires with¬ 
out fuel. The woodpile consisted, as a general thing of one log, 
upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was 
nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the gar¬ 
den fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray 
plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything about the farm 
was disagreeable. Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was 
preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows 
rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the 
work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of 
spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they 
were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or 
caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or 
eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, 
or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in 
the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all ran to vines, or tops, 
or stray, or smut, or cobs. And when in spite of all these acci¬ 
dents that lie in wait between the plow and the reaper, they did 
succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then 
the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, 
then the prices went down. 

Everything worked together for evil. 

Nearly every farmer’s boy took an oath that he would never 
cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twen¬ 
ty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the 
towns and cities. They wanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, mer¬ 
chants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers 
—anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy 
acquainted with the three R’s—reading, writing and arithmetic 
—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought 
to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to 
get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm 
envied those who went away. 

A few years ago the times were prosperous and the young 
men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting 
for them. They wanted to engage in something that promised 
quick returns. They built railways, established banks and insur¬ 
ance companies. They speculated in stocks in Wall street, and 
gambled in grain at Chicago. They became rich. They lived 
in palaces. They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor 
brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them. 

But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen 
the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of 
a receiver. They have seen the bank president abscond, and the 
insurance company a wrecked and ruined fraud. The only 
solvent people, as a class, the only independent people, are the 
tillers of the soil. (Applause.) 


178 


FARMING 


Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts of 
the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. The socia¬ 
bility of the city must be rendered possible in the country. 

Farming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been 
unsociable and their homes have been lonely. They have been 
wasteful and careless. They have not been proud of their busi¬ 
ness. 


No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. 
He should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. 
He should make every profit possible out of what he produces. 
So long as the farmers of the Middle States ship their corn and 
oats, so long they will be poor,—just so long will their farms be 
mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the east,— 
just so long will they do the work and others reap the benefit,— 
just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich, 
—just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits 
of honest toil. When the farmers of the west ship beef and pork 
instead of grain,—when we manufacture here,—when we cease 
paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous coun¬ 
try in the world. 

Another thing—it is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor 
breed of cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. 
If you are not able to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise 
the cornbreed. By “corn-breed” I mean the cattle that have, for 
several generations had enough to eat, and have been treated 
with kindness. Every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, 
and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded 
stock on his farm. All blooded stock has been produced in this 
way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. 
If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, 
and treat him with kindness. In this way, and in this way only, 
can good cattle or good people be produced. 

Another thing—you must beautify your homes. 

When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, 
nor to plant vines. 

When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flow¬ 
ers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came 
bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. There is no 
sense—there is no profit in such a life. It is not living. The 
farmers ought to beautify their homes. There should be trees 
and grass and flowers and running vines. Everything should be 
kept in order—gates should be on their hinges, and all about 
there should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there 
should be a bathroom. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beau- 
tifier. When you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, 


179 


FARMING 


nothing is so refreshing. Above all things, keep clean. It is not 
necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. In the cool of the 
evening, after a day in the field, put on clean clothes, take a seat 
under the trees, ’mid the perfume of flowers, surrounded by your 
family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like a gentle¬ 
man. (Loud applause.) 

In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in the 
Western states. You are in the best portion of the earth. From 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is no such country as yours. 
The east is hard and stony; the soil is stingy. The far west is 
a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate as perdition 
would be with the fires out. It is better to dig wheat and corn 
from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago I was where they 
wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. 
When I saw the mountains, treeless, shrubless, flowerless, with¬ 
out even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold holds it, as 
upon the man who lives and labors only for that. It affects the 
land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren without a 
flower of kindness—without a blossom of pity. 

The farmer of the Middle States has the best soil—the 
greatest return for the least labor—more leisure—more time for 
enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. His hard work 
ceases with autumn. He has the long winters in which to become 
acquainted with his family—with his neighbors—in which to 
read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. He 
has the time and means of self-culture. He has more time than 
the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the 
farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, 
and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of 
every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by 
man. 


In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the me¬ 
chanic. In our time we have plenty of mechanics but no trades¬ 
men. In the sub-division of labor we have a thousand men work¬ 
ing upon different parts of the same thing, each taught in one 
particular branch, and in only one. We have, say, in a shoe fac¬ 
tory, hundreds of men, but only one shoemaker. It takes them 
all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. 
Each does a particular part, and not one of them knows the en¬ 
tire trade. The result is that the moment the factory shuts down 
these men are out of employment. Out of employment means 
out of bread—out of bread means famine and horror. The 
mechanic of today has but little independence. His prosperity 
often depends upon the good will of one man. He is liable to 
be discharged for a look, for a word. He lays by but little for his 
declining years. He is, at the best, the slave of capital. 


180 


FARMING 


It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part 
of a mechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for your¬ 
self than to be hired by corporations. Every man should en¬ 
deavor to belong to himself. (Applause.) 

About seven hundred years ago, Khayam, a Persian, said: 
“Why should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life 
for two days, and who has a cup of water—why should such a 
man serve another?” 

Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not 
mortgage the possibilities of your future. Have the courage to 
take life as it comes, feast or famine. Think of hunting a gold 
mine for a dollar a day and think of finding one for another man. 
How would you feel then? 

We are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, 
we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the 
present. I had a thousand times rather have a farm and be inde¬ 
pendent, than to be President of the United States without inde¬ 
pendence, filled with doubt and trembling, feeling of the popular 
pulse, resorting to art and artifice, inquiring about the wind of 
opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my self-respect without 
gaining respect of others. 

Man needs more manliness, more real independence. We 
must take care of ourselves. This we can do by labor, and in 
this way we can preserve our independence. We should try and 
choose that business or profession the pursuit of which give us 
the most happiness. Happiness is wealth. We can be happy 
without being rich—without holding office—without being 
famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with 
office, or with fame. 

There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of 
a serene old age, that no other business or profession can prom¬ 
ise. A professional man is doomed some time to feel that his 
powers are waning. He is doomed to see younger and stronger 
men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to an old 
age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he 
was the first. But the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership 
with nature—he lives with trees and flowers—he breathes the 
sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain 
upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He 
watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and 
sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the wav¬ 
ing corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as 
he plants others for the children yet to be. 

Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the 
great question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with 
these men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one 


181 


FARMING 


answer. They must cultivate the soil. Farming must be ren¬ 
dered more attractive. Those who work the land must have an 
honest pride in their business. They must educate their children 
to cultivate the soil. They must make farming easier, so that 
their children will not hate it, so that they will not hate it them¬ 
selves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the soil is a curse 
and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education 
is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, lawyers, 
doctors or statesmen. It must be understood that education can 
be used to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the 
idea that a little learning unfits one for work. There are hun¬ 
dreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who 
are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, 
copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial 
service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded 
as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an 
office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy. Nearly 
every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. Such an 
education ought to be called ignorance. It is a thousand times 
better to have common sense without education than education 
without the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help 
themselves. They should be taught that it is disgraceful to be 
idle, and dishonest to be useless. 

I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, 
something must be done to make farm life pleasant. One great 
difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People write about the 
pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. He who 
lives long alone becomes insane. A hermit is a madman. With¬ 
out friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth living 
for. The unsocial are the enemies of joy. They are filled with 
egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. People who live much 
alone become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be the 
property of one idea. They begin to think there is no use in any¬ 
thing. They look upon the happiness of others as a kind of 
folly. They hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts, 
they envy them. (Applause.) 

In our country, farm life is too lonely. The farms are large, 
and neighbors are too far part. In these days, when the roads 
are filled with “tramps” the wives and children need protection. 
When the farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to 
work, a shadow of fear is upon his heart all day, and a like 
shadow rests upon all at home. 

In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced 
to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the 
far wild forest, and build his cabin miles and miles from any 
neighbor. He saw the smoke from his hearth go up alone in all 
the wide and lonely sky. 


182 


FARMING 


But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of liv¬ 
ing so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in vil¬ 
lages. With the improved machinery which you have—with your 
generous soil—with your markets and means of transportation, 
you can now afford to live together. 

It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to 
rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. This getting 
up so early in the morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made 
hundreds and thousands of young men curse the business. There 
is no need of getting up at three or four o’clock in the winter 
morning. The farmer who persists in doing it and persists in 
dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be vis¬ 
ited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun has 
set the example, j For what purpose do you get up ? To feed the 
cattle? Why not feed them more the night before? It is a waste 
of life. In the old times they used to get up about three o’clock 
in the morning and go to work long before the sun had risen with 
“healing upon his wings,” and as a just punishment they all had 
the ague; and they ought to have it now. The man who cannot 
get a living upon Illinois soil without rising before daylight ought 
to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work 
except in harvest time. When you arise at four and work till 
dark what is life worth ? Of what use are all the improvements 
in farming? Of what use is all the improved machinery unless 
it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure? What is har¬ 
vesting now compared with what it was in the old time ? Think 
of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and 
mowing. Think of threshing with the flail and winnowing with 
the wind. And now think of the reapers and mowers, the bind¬ 
ers and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators, upon 
which the farmer rides protected from the sun. If, with all the 
advantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle 
of the night, go into some other business. You should not rob 
your families of sleep. Sleep is the best medicine in the world. 
There is no such thing as health without plenty of sleep. Sleep 
until you are thoroughly rested and restored. When you work, 
work, and when you get through take a good, long and refreshing 
sleep. 

You should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits 
of social life. You can have a reading room—you can take the 
best papers and magazines—you can have plenty of books, and 
each one can have the benefit of them all. Some of the young 
men and women can cultivate music. You can have social gath¬ 
erings—you can learn from each other—you can discuss all top¬ 
ics of interest, and in this way you can make farming a delight¬ 
ful business. You must keep up with the age. The way to make 
farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. 
They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must know 

183 


FARMING 


something of books and something of what is going on in the 
world. They must not be satisfied with knowing something of 
the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about the rest of the 
earth. The business must be made attractive, and it never can 
be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure. 

A great many farmers seem to think that they are the only 
laborers in the world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers 
cannot get along without the mechanic. You are not independent 
of the man of genius. Your prosperity depends upon the in¬ 
ventor. The world advances by the assistance of all laborers; 
and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius. 
The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the 
soil. All laboring men should be brothers. You are in partner¬ 
ship with the mechanics who make your reapers, your mowers 
and your plows; and you should take into your granges all the 
men who make their living by honest labor. The laboring people 
should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. 
You can divide mankind into two classes; the laborers and the 
idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dis¬ 
honest. /Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor 
of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. I All laborers should 
be brothers. The laborers should have equal rights before the 
world and before the law. And I want every farmer to consider 
every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. 
Until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such 
thing as prosperity among men. Every reaper and mower, every 
agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and 
his vocation grows grander with every invention. In the olden 
time the agriculturalist was ignorant; he knew nothing of ma¬ 
chinery, he was the slave of superstition. He was always trying 
to appease some imaginary power by fasting and prayer. He 
supposed that some being, actuated by malice, sent the untimely 
frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode. To him 
the seasons were mysteries. The thunder told him of an enraged 
god—the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. The tiller of 
the soil lived in perpetual and abject fear. He knew nothing of 
mechanics, nothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause 
and effect. He was a superstitious savage. He invented prayers 
instead of plows, creeds instead of reapers and mowers. He was 
unable to devote all his time to the gods, and so he hired others 
to assist him, and for their influence with the gentlemen supposed 
to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of all he could produce. 

The farmer has been elevated through science and he should 
not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to 
the thinker. He should remember that all laborers belong to the 
same grand family—that they are the real kings and queens, the 
only true nobility. . . 


184 


FARMING 


Above all, let every farmer treat his wife and children with 
infinite kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advan¬ 
tage within your power. In the air of kindness they will grow 
around you like flowers. They will fill your homes with sunshine 
and all your years with joy. Do not try to rule by force. A blow 
from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. I should feel ashamed 
to die surrounded by children I had whipped. Think of feeling 
upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck. (Ap¬ 
plause.) 

See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her 
life worth living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, 
weary, and worn; mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, 
fill homes with grief and shame. If you are not able to hire help 
for your wives, help them yourself. See that they have the best 
utensils to work with. Women cannot create things by magic. 
Have plenty of wood and coal—good cellars and plenty in them. 
Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain water for 
washing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When the rain 
comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the bar¬ 
rel. . . 

Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and 
comfortable for the winter. Do not build a story-and-a-half 
house. The half story is simply an oven in which, during the 
summer, you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as 
though only the rind of yourself was left. 

Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engrav¬ 
ings. The cheapest are far better than none. Have books—have 
papers, and read them. You have more leisure than the dwellers 
in cities. Beautify your grounds with plants and flowers and 
vines. Have good gardens. Remember that everything of 
beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little morning-glory 
whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the 
sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the 
value of everything by the market reports. Every flower about 
a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine 
climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy. 

Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a 
little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened 
down. Do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when 
one of your children dies, put a piece in the papers commencing 
with “Whereas, it has pleased divine Providence to remove from 
our midst.” Have plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. Comfort 
is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because 
it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea. 

Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds 
in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all 


185 


FARMING 


that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. 
In this way you bring farming into hatred and disrepute. Treat 
your children with infinite kindness—treat them as equals. 
There is no happiness in a home not filled with love. Where the 
husband hates his wife—where the wife hates the husband; 
where children hate their parents and each other—there is a hell 
upon earth. 

There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest 
and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the 
fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the 
sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men 
unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, 
elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dark and 
dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work for others is, 
in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. 
Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless some¬ 
body loses. In the realm of speculation every success has at least 
one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and 
injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some 
one should fail. The same is true of all producers—of all labor¬ 
ers. 


I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a 
promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. He has 
his cellar filled—he has made every preparation for the days of 
snow and storm—he looks forward to three months of ease and 
rest; to three months of fireside content; three months with wife 
and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three 
months of home; three months of solid comfort. 

When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the 
cities and towns will not be filled with want—the streets will 
not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers and bank¬ 
rupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and the country vil¬ 
lages, almost hidden by trees and vines and flowers, filled with 
industrious and happy people, will nestle in every vale and gleam 
like gems on every plain. 

The idea must be done away with that there is something 
intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be 
nobler than to be useful. Idleness should not be respectable. 

If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will 
so build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in 
summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if 
they will occupy their leisure in reading, in thinking, in improv¬ 
ing their minds and in devising ways and means to make their 
business profitable and pleasant; if they will live nearer together 
and cultivate sociability; if they will come together often; if 
they will have reading rooms and cultivate music; if they will 


186 


FARMING 


have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if their wives can 
have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an op¬ 
portunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of the 
world; if the night can be taken for sleep and the evenings for 
enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. Happiness 
should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made 
really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, 
the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will 
cling and cluster the happy memories of the delightful years. 

Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all 
labor—that you should join hands with all the sons and daugh¬ 
ters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble 
family. 

For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad 
acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth 
he played, and lives where his father lived and died. 

I can imagine no sweeter way to end one’s life than in the 
quiet of the country out of the mad race for money, place and 
power—far from the demands of business—out of the dusty 
highways where fools struggle and strive for the hollow praise 
of other fools. 

Surrounded by pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those 
I have loved, I hope to end my days. And this I hope may be the 
lot of all who hear my voice. I hope that you, in the country, 
in houses covered with vines and clothed with flowers, looking 
from the open window upon rustling fields of corn and wheat, 
over which will run the sunshine and the shadows, surrounded by 
those whose lives you have filled with joy, will pass away serenely 
as the Autumn dies. 


187 













THREE SHORT ADDRESSES 
ON DEATH 


by 


ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 








































































































































































































*• 























































































































































In the Night of Death 

By 

Robert G. Ingersoll 


An address on the occasion of his 
brother’s death. 


My Friends: I am going to do that which the dead often 
promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, 
husband, father, friend died where manhood’s morning almost 
touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the 
West. He had not passed on life’s highway the stone that marks 
the highest point, but being weary for the moment he laid down 
by the wayside, and, using, a burden for a pillow, fell into that 
dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in 
love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence 
and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the hap¬ 
piest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are 
kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an in¬ 
stant hear the billows roar, a sunken ship. For whether in mid¬ 
sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must 
mark at last the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if 
its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a 
joy, will, to its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and 
dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. 
This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and 
rock, but in the sunshine he was love and flower. He was the 
friend of all heroic souls that climb the heights and left all 
superstitions here below, while on his forehead fell the golden 
dawning of a grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with 
color, form and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, 
and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal hearts and with 
purest hand he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a 
worshipper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed. A thousand 
times I have heard him quote the words: “For Justice, all place 
a temple and all season, summer.” He believed that happiness 
was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only wor¬ 
shipper, humanity the only religion and love the priest. He 
added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom 
he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he 
would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a 
narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. 
We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, 
and the only answer is the echo of a wailing cry. From the voice- 


IN THE NIGHT OF DEATH 


less lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the 
night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the 
rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking 
the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with 
his latest breath, “I am better now.” Let us believe, in spite of 
doubts and dogmas and tears and fears, that these dear words 
are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you who have 
been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last 
sad office for the dead, we give his sacred trust. Speech cannot 
contain our love. There was—there is—no gentler, stronger, 
manlier man. 


192 


To Those Who Died 


By 

Robert G. Ingersoll 


On occasion of Re-union of the Army 
of Tennessee, November 13, 1879. 


When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, 
and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our 
country, the question, “Will the great republic defend herself?” 
trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. The North, 
filled with intelligence and wealth, products of liberty, marshalled 
her hosts and asked only for a leader. 

From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised, and calm, 
stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the nation’s 
first and last demand: “Unconditional and immediate sur¬ 
render.” That utterance was the real declaration of real war, 
and in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events 
the great soldier who made it received the final sword of the re¬ 
bellion. The soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vul¬ 
gar glory; they were not animated by the hope of plunder or the 
love of conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of lib¬ 
erty, that their children might have peace. They were the de¬ 
fenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers 
of chains, and in the name of the future they saluted the mon¬ 
sters of their time. They finished what the soldiers of the revo¬ 
lution commenced. They relighted the torch that fell from those 
august hands and filled the world again with light. They blotted 
from the statute books the laws that had been passed by hypo¬ 
crites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant 
hands from the Constitution that infamous clause that made 
men the catchers of their fellow man. They made it possible 
for judges to be just and statesmen to be human. They broke 
the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of masters, 
and from the Northern brain. They kept our country on the map 
of the world and our flag in heaven. They rolled the stone from 
the sepulcher of progress, and found therein two angels clad in 
shining garments—nationality and liberty. 

The soldiers were the saviors of the nation. They were the 
liberators of man. In writing the proclamation of emancipation, 
Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle 
as the summer air when reapers sing ’mid gathered sheaves, 
copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote 
with swords. 


193 


TO THOSE WHO DIED 


Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the sol¬ 
diers of the republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, 
battled for the rights of others, for the nobility of labor; fought 
that mothers might own their babes, that arrogant idleness 
should not scar the back of patient toil, that our country should 
not be a manheaded monster made of warring states but a na¬ 
tion-sovereign, great and free. 

Blood was water, money was leaves, and life was only com¬ 
mon air until one flag floated over the republic without a master 
and without a slave. Then was asked the question, “Will a free 
people tax themselves to pay the nation’s debt?” The soldiers 
went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children and to 
the girls they loved. They went back to the fields, the shops and 
mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been en¬ 
nobled. They were as honest in peace as they were brave in war. 
Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of 
toil. They said: “We saved the nation’s life, and what is life 
without honor?” They worked and wrought with all of labor’s 
royal sons that every pledge the nation gave might be redeemed. 
And their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship, 
a girdle of clasped and happy hands, around the globe, comes 
home and finds that every promise made in war has now the 
ring and gleam of gold. 

Then there is another question still. Will all the wounds of 
war be healed? I answer yes. The Southern people must sub¬ 
mit, not to the dictation of the North but to the nation’s will 
and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time 
will come when they will say that they are victors who have been 
vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and free¬ 
dom will cultivate their feelings, educate their children, weave 
for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their 
land with happy homes. 

The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the 
North. They made us a nation. Their victories made us free 
and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow 
upon volcanoes’ lips. 

And now let us drink to the volunteers. To those who sleep 
in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts 
of those they loved and left, of those who often hear in happy 
dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died 
while lipless famine mocked; to all the maimed whose scars give 
modesty a tongue; to all who dared and gave to chance the care, 
the keeping of their lives; to all the dead; to Sherman, to Sheri¬ 
dan, and to Grant, the foremost soldier of the world; and, last, 
to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches 
all the clouds of war. 


194 


The Death of a Child 


by 


Robert G. Ingersoll 


An address which perfectly meets a 
moving occasion. 


The following news dispatch dramatically states the occa¬ 
sion for this address: 

In a remote corner of the Congressional Cemetery 
yesterday afternoon, a small group of people with 
uncovered heads were ranged around a newly- 
opened grave. They included Mr. and Mrs. George 
0. Miller and family and friends, who had gathered 
to witness the burial of the former’s bright little 
son Harry, a recent victim of diphtheria. As the 
casket rested upon the trestles there was a painful 
pause, broken only by the mother’s sobs, until the 
undertaker advanced toward a stout, florid-com- 
plexioned gentleman in the party and whispered to 
him, the words being inaudible to the looker-on. 

This gentleman was Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a 
friend of the Millers, who had attended the funeral 
at their request. He shook his head when the un¬ 
dertaker first addressed him, and then suddenly 
said, “Does Mrs. Miller desire it?” The under¬ 
taker gave an affirmative nod. Mr. Miller looked 
appealingly toward the distinguished orator, and 
then Col. Ingersoll advanced to the side of the 
grave, made a motion denoting a desire for silence, 
and, in a voice of exquisite cadence, delivered one 
of his characteristic eulogies for the dead. The 
scene was intensely dramatic. A fine drizzling 
rain was falling, and every head was bent, and 
every ear turned to catch the impassioned words 
of eloquence and hope that fell from the lips of the 
famed orator. Col. Ingersoll was unprotected by 
either hat or umbrella, and his invocation thrilled 
his hearers with awe, each eye that had previously 
been bedimmed with tears brightening and sobs be¬ 
coming hushed. 

My Friends: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with 
words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here 
in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be 
brave enough to meet what all have met. The future has been 
filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From 
the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened 
fruit, and in the common bed of earth patriarchs and babes sleep 
side by side. 


195 


THE DEATH OF A CHILD 


Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? 
We cannot tell. We do not know which is the greatest blessing, 
life or death. We cannot say that death is not good. We do not 
know whether the grave is the end of this life or the door of 
another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. 

Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate, the child 
dying in its mother’s arms before its lips have learned to form 
a word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, 
painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch. Every 
cradle asks us “Whence?” and every coffin “Whither”? 

No man standing where the horizon of a life has touched a 
grave has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and 
tears. It may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. 
If those who press and strain against our hearts could never 
die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. Maybe a 
common faith treads from out the paths between our hearts the 
weeds of selfishness, and I should rather live and love where death 
is king than have eternal life where love is not. 

Another life is naught, unless we know and love again the 
ones who love us here. They who stand with breaking hearts 
around this little grave need have no fear. The largest and the 
noblest faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even 
at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the 
common wants of life, the needs and duties of each hour, their 
grief will lessen day by day until at last these graves will be to 
them a place of rest and peace, almost of joy. 

There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. 
If they live again their lives will surely be as good as ours. We 
have no fear; we are all children of the same mother and the 
same fate awaits us all. 


196 


TO LIBERTY 


by 


HENRY GEORGE 



To Liberty 

by 

Henry George 


Close of Mr. George’s famous speech, 
“The American Republic,” delivered 
at San Francisco, July 4, 1877. 


They who look upon Liberty as having accomplished her 
mission, when she has abolished hereditary privileges and given 
men the ballot, who think of her as having no further relations 
to the every day affairs of life, have not seen her real grandeur— 
to them the poets who have sung of her must seem rhapsodists, 
and her martyrs fools! As the sun is lord of life, as well as of 
light; as his beams not merely pierce the clouds, but support all 
growth, supply all motion, and call forth from what would other¬ 
wise be a cold and inert mass, all the infinite diversities of being 
and beauty, so is Liberty to mankind. It is not for an abstrac¬ 
tion that men have toiled and died; that in every age the wit¬ 
nesses of Liberty have stood forth, and the martyrs of Liberty 
have suffered. It was for more than this that matrons handed 
the Queen Anne musket from its rest, and that maids bid their 
lovers go to death! 

We speak of Liberty as one thing, and of virtue, wealth, 
knowledge, invention, national strength and national indepen¬ 
dence as other things. But, of all these, Liberty is the source, 
the mother, the necessary condition. She is to virtue what light 
is to color, to wealth what sunshine is to grain; to knowledge 
what eyes are to the sight. She is the genius of invention, the 
brawn of national strength, the spirit of national independence! 
Where Liberty rises, there virtue grows, wealth increases, knowl¬ 
edge expands, invention multiplies human powers, and in 
strength and spirit the freer nation rises among her neighbors 
as Saul amid his brethren—taller and fairer. Where Liberty 
sinks, there virtue fades, wealth diminishes, knowledge is for¬ 
gotten, invention ceases, and empires once mighty in arms and 
arts become a helpless prey to freer barbarians! 

Only in broken gleams and partial light has the sun of Lib¬ 
erty yet beamed among men, yet all progress hath she called 
forth. 

Liberty came to a race of slaves crouching under Egyptian 
whips, and led them forth from the House of Bondage. She 
hardened them in the desert and made of them a race of con- 


199 


TO LIBERTY 


querors. The free spirit of the Mosaic law took their thinkers 
up to heights where they beheld the unity of God, and inspired 
their poets with strains that yet phrase the highest exaltations 
of thought. Liberty dawned on the Phoenician Coast, and ships 
passed the Pillars of Hercules to plough the unknown sea. She 
broke in partial light on Greece, and marble grew to shapes of 
ideal beauty, words became the instruments of subtlest thought, 
and against the scanty militia of free cities the countless hosts 
of the Great King broke like surges against a rock. She cast her 
beams on the four-acre farms of Italian Husbandmen, and born 
of her strength a power came forth that conquered the world! 
She glinted from shields of German warriors, and Augustus wept 
his legions. Out of the night that followed her eclipse, her slant¬ 
ing rays fell again on free cities, and a lost learning revived, 
modern civilization began, a new world was unveiled; and as 
Liberty grew so grew art, wealth, power, knowledge, and refine¬ 
ment. In the history of every nation we may read the same truth. 
It was the strength born of Magna Charta that won Crecy and 
Agincourt. It was the revival of Liberty from the despotism of 
the Tudors that glorified the Elizabethan age. It was the spirit 
that brought a crowned tyrant to the block that planted here 
the seed of a mighty tree. It was the energy of ancient freedom 
that, the moment it had gained unity, made Spain the mightiest 
power of the world, only to fall to the lowest depth of weakness 
when tyranny succeeded Liberty. See, in France, all intellectual 
vigour dying under tyranny of the seventeenth century to re¬ 
vive in splendor as Liberty awoke in the eighteenth, and on the 
enfranchisement of the French peasant in the Great Revolution, 
basing the wonderful strength that has in our time laughed at 
disaster. 

Who is Liberty that we should doubt her; that we should set 
bounds to her, and say, “Thus far shall thou come and no fur¬ 
ther !” Is she not peace ? Is she not prosperity ? Is she not prog¬ 
ress? Nay, is she not the goal towards which all progress strives? 

Not here; but yet she cometh! Saints have seen her in their 
visions; seers have seen her in their trance. To heroes has she 
spoken, and their hearts were strong; to martyrs, and the flames 
were cool i 

She is not here, but yet she cometh. Lo! her feet are on the 
mountains—the call of her clarion rings on every breeze; the 
banners of her dawning fret the sky! Who will hear her as she 
calleth; who will bid her come and welcome ? Who will turn to 
her? Who will speak for her? Who will stand for her while she 
yet hath need? 


200 



WOMAN 


by 


HORACE PORTER 




































, 


















































































































































































































































































































































































































































Woman 

by 


Horace Porter 


Speech of Horace Porter at the 
seventy-eighth annual dinner of the 
New England Society in the City of 
New York, December 22, 1883. The 
President, Marvelle W. Cooper, in in¬ 
troducing the speaker, arose, men¬ 
tioned the single word “Woman”— 
and said: “This toast will be re¬ 
sponded to by one whom you know 
well, General Horace Porter.” 


Mr. President and Gentlemen: When this toast was pro¬ 
posed to me, I insisted that it ought to be responded to by a 
bachelor, by some one who is known as a ladies’ man; but in these 
days of female proprietorship it is supposed that a married per¬ 
son is more essentially a ladies’ man than anybody else, and it 
was thought that only one who had had the courage to address a 
lady could have the courage, under these circumstances, to ad¬ 
dress the New England Society. 

The toast, I see, is not in its usual order tonight. At public 
dinners this toast is habitually placed last on the list. It seems 
to be a benevolent provision of the Committee on Toasts in order 
to give man in replying to Woman one chance at least in life 
of having the last word. At the New England dinners, unfor¬ 
tunately the most fruitful subject of remark regarding woman 
is not so much her appearance as her disappearance. I know that 
this was remedied a few years ago, when this grand annual 
gastronomic high carnival was held in the Metropolitan Concert 
Hall. There ladies were introduced into the galleries to grace 
the scene by their presence; and I am sure the experiment was 
sufficiently encouraging to warrant repetition, for it was beauti¬ 
ful to see the descendants of the Pilgrims sitting with eyes up¬ 
turned in true puritanic sanctity; it was encouraging to see the 
sons of those pious sires devoting themselves, at least for one 
night, to setting their affections upon “things above.” 

Woman’s first home was in the Garden of Eden. There man 
first married woman. Strange that the incident should have 
suggested to Milton the “Paradise Lost.” Man was placed in a 
profound sleep, a rib was taken from his side, a woman was 
created from it, and she became his wife. Evil-minded persons 


203 


WOMAN 


constantly tell us that thus man’s first sleep became his last re¬ 
pose. But if woman be given at times to that contrariety of 
thought and perversity of mind which sometimes passeth our 
understanding, it must be recollected in her favor that she was 
created out of the crookedest part of man. 

The Rabbins have a different theory regarding creation. 
They go back to the time when we were all monkeys. They in¬ 
sist that man was originally created with a kind of Darwinian 
tail, and that in the process of evolution this caudel appendage 
was removed and created into woman. This might better ac¬ 
count for those Caudle lectures which woman is in the habit of 
delivering, and some color is given to this theory, from the fact 
that husbands even down to the present day seem to inherit a 
general disposition to leave their wives behind. 

The first woman, finding no other man in that garden except 
her own husband, took to flirting even with the Devil. The race 
might have been saved much tribulation if Eden had been located 
in some calm and tranquil land—like Ireland. There would at 
least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. No woman 
in her thirst after knowledge, showed her true female inquisitive¬ 
ness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemora¬ 
tion of that circumstance, the serpent seems to have been curled 
up and used in nearly all languages as a sign of interrogation. 
Soon the domestic troubles of our first parent began. The first 
woman’s favorite son was filled with a club, and married women 
even to this day seem to have an instinctive horror of clubs. The 
first woman learned that it was Cain that raised a club. Yet, I 
think, I recognize faces here tonight that I see behind the win¬ 
dows of Fifth Avenue clubs of an afternoon, with their noses 
pressed flat against the broad plate glass, and as woman trips 
along the sidewalk, I have observed that these gentlemen appear 
to be more assiduously engaged than ever was a government 
scientific commission in taking observations upon the transit of 
Venus. 

Before those windows passes many a face fairer than that 
of the Ludovician Juno or the Venus of Medici. There is the 
Saxon blonde with the deep blue eye, whose glances return love 
for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a 
wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of 
the morning sunbeam. There is the Latin brunette with the deep, 
black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like silken fringe 
upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like raven’s 
wings spread out upon new-fallen snow. 

And yet the club man is not happy. As the ages roll on 
woman has materially elevated herself in the scale of being. 
Now she stops at nothing. She soars. She demands the coedu¬ 
cation of the sexes. She thinks nothing of delving into the most 


204 


WOMAN 


obstruse problems of the higher branches of analytical science. 
She can cipher out the exact hour of the night when her hus¬ 
band ought to be home, either according to the old or the re¬ 
cently adopted method of calculating time. I never knew of but 
one married man who gained any decided domestic advantage by 
this change in our time. He was an habitue of a club situated 
next door to his house. His wife was always upbraiding him for 
coming home too late at night. Fortunately, when they made 
this change of time, they placed one of those meridians from 
which our time, is calculated right between the club and his 
house. Every time he stepped across that imaginary line it 
set him back a whole hour in time. He found that he could then 
leave his club at 1 o’clock and get home to his wife at 12; and 
for the first time in twenty years peace reigned around that 
hearth-stone. 

Woman now revels even in the more complicated problems 
of mathematical astronomy. Give a woman ten minutes and she 
will describe a heliocentric parallax of the heavens. Give her 
twenty minutes and she will find astronomically the longitude of 
a place by means of lunar calculations. Give that same woman 
an hour and a half, with the present fashions, and she cannot 
find the pocket in her dress. 

And yet man’s admiration for woman never flags. He will 
give her half his fortune; he will give her his whole heart; he 
seems always willing to give her everything that he possesses, 
except his seat in a horse-car. 

Every nation has had its heroines as well as its heroes. Eng¬ 
land, in her wars, had a Florence Nightingale; and the soldiers 
in the expression of their adoration, used to stoop and kiss the 
hem of her garment as she passed. America, in her war, had 
a Dr. Mary Walker. Nobody ever stooped to kiss the hem of 
her garment—because that was not exactly the kind of garment 
she wore. But why should man stand here and attempt to 
speak of woman, when she is so abundantly equipped to speak 
for herself. I know that is the case in New England; and I am 
reminded, by seeing General Grant here tonight, of an inci¬ 
dent in proof of it which occurred when he was making the mar¬ 
vellous tour through New England, just after the war. The train 
stopped at a station in the State of Maine. The General was 
standing on the rear platform of the last car. At that time, as 
you know, he had a great reputation for silence—for it was be¬ 
fore he had made his series of brilliant speeches before the New 
England Society. They spoke of his reticence—a quality which 
New Englanders admire so much—in others. Suddenly there 
was a commotion in the crowd, and as it opened a large, tall, 
gaunt-looking woman came rushing toward the car, out of breath. 
Taking her spectacles off from the top of her head and putting 
them on her nose, she put her arms akimbo, and looking up, 


205 


WOMAN 


said: “Well I’ve just come down here a runnin’ nigh onto two 
mile, right on the clean jump, just to get a look at the man that 
lets the women do all the talkin’.” 

The first regular speaker of the evening touched upon 
woman, but only incidentally, only in reference to Mormonism 
and that sad land of Utah, where a single death may make a 
dozen widows. 

A speaker at the New England dinner in Brooklyn last night 
tried to prove that the Mormons came originally from New 
Hampshire and Vermont. I know that a New Englander some¬ 
times in the course of his life marries several times; but he takes 
the precaution to take his wives in their proper order of legal 
succession. The difference is that he drives his team of wives 
tandem, while the Mormon insists upon driving his abreast. 

But even the least serious of us, Mr. President, have some 
serious moments in which to contemplate the true nobility of 
woman’s character. If she were created from a rib, she was 
made from that part which lies nearest a man’s heart. 

It has been beautifully said that man was fashioned out of 
the dust of the earth while woman was created from God’s own 
image. It is our pride in this land that woman’s honor is her 
own best defence; that here female virtue is not measured by 
the vigilance of detective nurses; that here woman may walk 
throughout the length and the breadth of this land, through its 
highways and its byways, uninsulted, unmolested, clothed in the 
invulnerable panoply of her own woman’s virtue; that even in 
places where crime lurks and vice prevails in the haunts of our 
great cities, and in the rude mining gulches of the West, owing 
to the noble efforts of our women, and the influence of their ex¬ 
ample, there are raised up, even there, girls who are good daugh¬ 
ters, loyal wives, and faithful mothers. They seem to rise in 
those rude surroundings as grows the pond lily, which is en¬ 
tangled by every species of rank growth, environed by poison, 
miasma and corruption, and yet which rises in the beauty of its 
purity and lifts its fair face unblushing to the sun. 

No one who has witnessed the heroism of America’s daugh¬ 
ters in the field should fail to pay a passing tribute to their worth. 
I do not speak alone of those trained Sisters of Charity, who in 
scenes of misery and woe seem Heaven’s chosen messengers on 
earth; but I would speak also of those fair daughters who came 
forth from the comfortable firesides of New England and other 
States, little trained to scenes of suffering, little used to the 
rudeness of a life in camp, who gave their all, their time, their 
health, and even life itself, as a willing sacrifice in that cause 
which then moved the nation’s soul. As one of these, with her 
graceful form, was seen moving silently through the darkened 


206 


WOMAN 


aisles of an army hospital, as the motion of her passing dress 
wafted a breeze across the face of the wounded, they felt that 
their parched brows had been fanned by the wings of the angel 
of mercy. 

Ah! Mr. President, woman is after all a mystery. It has 
been well said, that woman is the great conundrum of the nine¬ 
teenth century; but if we cannot guess her, we will never give 
her up. 


207 






TWO SHORT ADDRESSES 


by 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
























































































































































































- • 




























































































' 


























* 




























Principles to Live and Die By 

by 

Abraham Lincoln 


Speech in Independence Hall, Phila¬ 
delphia, February 22nd, 1861. 


I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in 
this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the pa¬ 
triotism, the devotion of principle, from which sprang the in¬ 
stitutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me 
that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted 
country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political senti¬ 
ments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able 
to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and 
were given the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling, 
politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in 
the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over 
the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here 
and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have pondered 
over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of 
the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired 
of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this 
Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of 
separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that senti¬ 
ment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not 
alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for 
all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time 
the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and 
that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment em¬ 
bodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, 
can this country be saved on that basis? If it can, I will con¬ 
sider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help 
to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be 
truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving 
up that principle, I was about to say, I would rather be assas¬ 
sinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the 
present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. 
There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course; 
and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed un¬ 
less it is forced upon the government. The government will 
not use force, unless force is used against it. 


211 


PRINCIPLES TO LIVE AND DIE BY 


My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not 
expect to be called on to say a word when I came here. I sup¬ 
posed I was merely to do something toward raising a flag. I 
may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. (Cries of “No, 
no.”) But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, 
and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God to die by. 


212 


For a Just and Lasting Peace 

by 


Abraham Lincoln 


Second Inaugural Address, March 4th, 
1865. 


Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the 
oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an ex¬ 
tended address than there was at first. Then a statement, some¬ 
what in detail, of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and 
proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which pub¬ 
lic declarations have been constantly called forth on every point 
and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention 
and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could 
be presented. 

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly de¬ 
pends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I 
trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high 
hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending Civil War. 
All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural ad¬ 
dress was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to 
saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city 
seeking to destroy it with war—seeking to dissolve the Union 
and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated 
war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation 
survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, 
and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were 
colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but lo¬ 
calized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a 
peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was 
somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and 
extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents 
would rend the Union by war, while the government claimed 
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement 
of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the 
duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
the cause of the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an 


213 


FOR A JUST AND LASTING PEACE 


easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each 
invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any 
men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their 
bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, 
that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. 
That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has 
His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for 
it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom 
the offense cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is 
one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs 
come, but which having continued through His appointed time, 
He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and 
South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the of¬ 
fence came, shall we discern there any departure from those Di¬ 
vine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe 
to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills 
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two 
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until 
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so 
still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether. 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work 
we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations. 


214 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME 


by 

LEWIS W. HARTHILL 


' 






. 








Responsibility for Crime 

by 

Lewis W. Harthill 


Address by former chief of police of 
Minneapolis delivered before the Bus¬ 
iness Men’s Club at the Y. M. C. A. 


It is generally believed by the public that a police depart¬ 
ment is a brutal institution, that its only function is to apply 
the iron hand of the law, to arrest and convict those who may 
have violated the law or committed crime. To be sure that is 
one of its functions, but to me its most important work is the pre¬ 
vention of crime, and through prevention the protection of the 
public. 

Before discussing with you vice, crime and its causes, I 
wish to call to your attention two or three facts that might aid 
you in following this argument. First, that in the United States 
today we are spending almost as much money for law enforce¬ 
ment, such as for police departments, sheriffs' offices, courts, and 
penal institutions, as we are spending for public school education, 
and every year we are increasing the police, grinding our courts 
over time, adding to and building new penal institutions, and 
filling them to their capacity. Second, that almost 80 per cent 
of the people handled by the police are not criminal or vicious of 
heart, but victims of circumstances, often extenuating, or of hos¬ 
tile economic conditions. Third, that the attitude of the police 
and the methods used by them toward juveniles oftentimes de¬ 
termine whether in the future the boys and girls become habitual 
criminals. 

Bearing these facts in mind, I want to discuss with you 
not so much the handling of criminals, which is the biggest prob¬ 
lem of the police, but the work of the police department as a pub¬ 
lic safety department. Understanding the human animal, in par¬ 
ticular his mental reactions, is important. The science of psychol¬ 
ogy has changed, and we find now obsolete all the methods used 
by the police departments in years gone by. 

A review of past history teaches us that vice and crime have 
not been minimized, but that our problems are becoming more in¬ 
tensified and complicated. In the past public law enforcement 
bodies and penal institutions have shown a desire to punish, 


217 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME 


thereby making the inmates of penal institutions bitter because 
most of them believe that they have been over-punished, sending 
them back to society with a grudge and a keen desire to retaliate 
too often. We have measured the efficiency of law enforcement 
bodies very largely by the number of arrests they have made, 
and not by the amount of education that they have given. 

In taking charge of the Minneapolis police department I 
was not a so-called “copper,” but a layman superintendent chosen 
to guide the activities of the police force. I believed that closing 
the channels that feed white slavery, prostitution and crime was 
far more important than applying the iron hand of the law' and 
apprehending those who had merely committed crime, and I im¬ 
mediately started a campaign of education in our public schools, 
parents' and teachers’ associations and high society, for the pre¬ 
vention of crime. I started this campaign after handling some 
of the most notorious and vicious criminals known to the po¬ 
lice departments throughout the United States. 

It is not a complex problem to handle a habitual criminal, 
because the most severe punishment can be resorted to. Those 
who have no regard for human life and property can be punished 
without any injustice to the criminal himself. But to handle the 
80 per cent who need help far more than they need punishment, 
and especially the juvenile who needs advice, help and sympathy 
was what puzzled me, and every other police officer and led me 
to this campaign of education. I placed the responsibility of the 
80 per cent of preventable crime and vice on the shoulders of so¬ 
ciety. Environment determines the destiny of most of us. To 
punish a girl for having made a mistake when she finds her 
wages and working conditions are such as not to permit her to 
live within a semblance of common decency, is a social crime. To 
punish the juvenile whose parents because of poor wages and 
long hours are prevented from giving the child ordinary oppor¬ 
tunities, is a crime. In other words, to me the greatest crime 
that is being committed is the crime of punishing those who have 
violated the law under conditions that society is responsible for. 

The campaign I carried on for the prevention of crime, and 
the minimizing of vice through closing the channels that feed 
the crime mills, was merely a campaign of placing upon the shoul¬ 
ders of society responsibilities for which it is rightly responsible. 
This may seem to you a unique position for the chief of police 
of a city of nearly half a million to take, but iron-bound conven¬ 
tion and hoary tradition mean little to me. I believed frank ad¬ 
mission of real causes sooner or later had to be admitted and the 
sooner the admission was made the sooner the results. 

I made probably the most exhaustive study of vice and crime 
that was made by any police head in the United States, at least 
I was given that credit by the largest police papers in the world. 


218 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME 


The study was merely a personal observation of human wreck¬ 
age, good, bad and indifferent. All of them, every mother’s son 
and every mother’s daughter, was a challenge to my theory. In 
one year, of the hundreds of girls handled by the police under my 
administration, I turned five hundred and nine back to their 
parents without even placing a scratch of the pen against them, 
all of them guilty of some minor offense. I took the position that 
the parents after all, were by far the best custodians and that 
they needed help more than they needed punishment. My at¬ 
titude was this: Out of the five hundred and nine, if only one 
little girl proved herself worthy, I would rather let five hundred 
and eight who were undeserving go scot-free than to punish one 
little girl who was deserving. But I found that nearly every one 
of them did her best to make good and tried to prove her worthi¬ 
ness. 


Prostitution is not a police problem, it is a problem of so¬ 
ciety. Arresting of scarlet women has never minimized vice, 
merely complicated it. To teach the growing girl the dangers 
and the price they pay for such a life does minimize, does save 
and tends toward making cleaner, more wholesome communities. 

Probably one of the most heart-rending investigations I 
made was the investigation and study of drug addicts. I handled 
personally over six hundred drug fiends, sat in the cells with 
ninety-two of them at different times, from four to six hours, in 
order to observe the effect of the drug as it wore off. I have seen 
these boys and men suffer all the tortures and agonies of Hell. I 
have seen them lie on the floor of the cell, rolling backward and 
forward begging me for a piece of sugar, a lemon or an orange, 
for they do not feed their system any nourishing food, and the 
result is that they have no resisting powers. I have seen them 
double up their fist, stick out their thumbs and drive their thumb 
nails into their stomach until it bled, trying to ease the pain and 
gnawing of that vicious drug as it took its pay in after effects. 
I have seen drug victims who have been dragged down to the 
very dregs of society, physical wrecks, and all hope lost, and I 
have thought, “What satisfaction is there in punishing poor un¬ 
fortunates of this character?” They were here and had to be 
contended with, but how about the hundreds of thousands that 
were being made every day, boys and girls from the ages of 
twelve years up, being cursed by society, and nothing done to 
help them. 

My investigation took me down through almost every known 
vice and crime, and I wondered whether our law enforcement 
bodies, courts and penal institutions were really functioning. 
Were they really helping the great mass of humanity, who, after 
all was said and done, were God’s people. 

And that is why I am talking to you today. It is your prob¬ 
lem. If, as chief of police of the City of Minneapolis, all I had 


219 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME 



to do was to handle vicious criminals, and apply the iron hand of 
the law, it would be simple and easy, but if I conceived as my job 
the making of an educational institution, an institution for the 
prevention of crime, then the problem was big. 

In conclusion I merely want to say this, that regardless of 
the attitude and methods used by the police in the past, and I 
say that because the methods and practices used by the police 
determine the destiny of almost every youth that is brought with¬ 
in their clutches, the time has come when common sense and 
humane methods have got to be used by these institutions. They 
can and will be changed only by demand on the part of the 
public. I am asking that our public schools, which are the edu¬ 
cators of our youth, start immediately a course of study, first, 
to teach the child respect for law, to teach him that law is not 
made to punish people, but is made to help people. Law merely 
draws a line to show where we encroach upon the life of others. 
No child would destroy an American flag, and he does not refrain 
because there is punishment attached to the act. He refrains 
because he has been taught a loyalty to the flag. Second, 
children also should be taught in school that there is no profit in 
crime. All criminals eventually are caught. The process some¬ 
times may seem long, but eventually they are caught, and they 
pay. The price for committing crime or leading a life of crime 
is absolutely immeasurable. You may measure the price paid 
merely by the number of years served in a penal institution, but 
who can measure the heartaches of the mother, the disgrace 
brought upon the family, the loss of confidence of friends, and 
the destruction of entire futures. 

While chief of police I have had boys boast to me of having 
gone to jail, but I never had a boy boast to me of having caused 
his mother heartaches or bringing disgrace upon his family. If 
properly taught the boy will refrain from committing crime more 
on account of the heartaches of his mother and the disgrace 
brought upon his family, than on account of the penalty attached 
by law. I am urging and appealing to the public and to society 
to assume its share of responsibility in bringing about cleaner 
and more wholesome communities through education, or through 
the abandonment of the iron hand. 

May I just call your attention to a little story in the Bible— 
the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the Lord confided in 
Abraham that he was going to destroy these two cities on account 
of their wickedness. Abraham being a Jew argued with the 
Lord and said, “Lord, if there are only one hundred good, will 
you save the city?” and the Lord said, “If there are one hundred 
good I will not destroy them.” Abraham Jewed the Lord down 
to ten and he said, “Lord, if there are only ten, will you save 
the city?” And the Lord said, “If there are only ten good I will 


220 


RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME 


not destroy it.” But there were only five. The Lord saved the 
five and destroyed the city. To me, the Lord tried to convey 
the teaching that if there is any good in anyone he is worth sav¬ 
ing. 


Instead of punishing and destroying, let’s educate. Let's 
assume our responsibilities. The sooner we do the sooner we 
shall throw a cloak of protection around the human race. 


221 









“WE, THE PEOPLE” 
OR 

“WE, THE STATES” 

by 


PATRICK HENRY 





































“We, the People,” or “We, the States” 


By 

Patrick Henry 


From his famous address to The 
Virginia Convention, June 5, 1788. 


Mr. Chairman: The public mind, as well as my own, is ex¬ 
tremely uneasy at the proposed change of government. 

Give me leave to form one of the number of those who wish 
to be thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this perilous 
and uneasy situation, and why we are brought hither to decide 
on this great national question. I consider myself as the servant 
of the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their 
rights, liberty, and happiness. I represent their feelings when 
I say that they are exceedingly uneasy, being brought from that 
state of full security, which they enjoy, to the present delusive 
appearance of things. Before the meeting of the late Federal 
Convention at Philadelphia, a general peace and a universal tran¬ 
quillity prevailed in this country, and the minds of our citizens 
were at perfect repose; but since that period they are exceed¬ 
ingly uneasy and disquieted. 

When I wished for an appointment to this convention, my 
mind was extremely agitated for the situation of public affairs. 
I conceive the Republic to be in extreme danger. If our situation 
be thus uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful jeopardy? It 
arises from this fatal system; it arises from a proposal to change 
our government—a proposal that goes to the utter annihilation 
of the most solemn engagements of the States—a proposal of es¬ 
tablishing nine States into a confederacy, to the eventual exclu¬ 
sion of four States. It goes to the annihilation of these solemn 
treaties we have formed with foreign nations. The present cir¬ 
cumstances of France, the good offices rendered us by that king¬ 
dom, require our most faithful and most punctual adherence to 
our treaty with her. We are in alliance with the Spaniards, the 
Dutch, the Prussians: these treaties bound us as thirteen States, 
confederated together. Yet here is a proposal to sever that con¬ 
federacy. Is it possible that we shall abandon all our treaties 
and national engagements? And for what? 

I expected to have heard the reasons of any event so unex¬ 
pected to my mind, and many others. Was our civil policy, or 


225 


“WE, THE PEOPLE,” OR “WE, THE STATES” 


public justice, endangered or sapped? Was the real existence of 
the country threatened, or was this preceded by a mournful pro¬ 
gression of events? This proposal of altering our Federal gov¬ 
ernment is of a most alarming nature; make the best of this 
new government—say it is composed of anything but inspiration 
—you ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your 
liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them 
forever. If a wrong step be now made, the republic may be lost 
forever. If this new government will not come up to the expec¬ 
tation of the people, and they should be disappointed, their lib¬ 
erty will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise. 

I repeat it again, and I beg, gentlemen, to consider, that a 
wrong step made now will plunge us into misery, and our repub¬ 
lic will be lost. It will be necessary for this convention to have 
a faithful historical detail of the facts that preceded the session 
of the Federal Convention, and the reasons that actuated its 
members in proposing an entire alteration of government—and 
to demonstrate the dangers that awaited us. If they were of 
such awful magnitude as to warrant a proposal so extremely 
perilous as this, I must assert that this convention has an abso¬ 
lute right to a thorough discovery of every circumstance rela¬ 
tive to this great event. And here I would make this inquiry 
of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late 
Federal Convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with 
the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, in¬ 
stead of a confederation. That this is a consolidated government 
is demonstrably clear, and the danger of such a government is 
to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for 
those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand what right 
had they to say, “We, the People?” My political curiosity, ex¬ 
clusive of any anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me 
to ask who authorized them to speak the language of “We, the 
People” instead of “We, the States?” States are the character¬ 
istics and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the 
agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated national 
government of the people of all the States. 

I have the highest respect for those gentlemen who formed 
the convention; and were some of them not here, I would ex¬ 
press some testimonial of esteem for them. America had, on a 
former occasion, put the utmost confidence in them—a confidence 
which was well placed; and I am sure, sir, I would give up any¬ 
thing to them; I would cheerfully confide in them as my repre¬ 
sentatives. But, sir, on this great occasion I would demand the 
cause of their conduct. Even from that illustrious man who 
saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his conduct; 
that liberty which he has given us by his valor tells me to ask 
this reason, and sure I am, were he here, he would give us this 
information. The people gave them no power to use their name. 
That they exceed their power is perfectly clear. 


226 


“WE, THE PEOPLE/’ OR “WE, THE STATES” 


It is not mere curiosity that actuates me: I wish to hear 
the real, actual, existing danger, which should lead us to take 
those steps so dangerous in my conception. Disorders have 
arisen in other parts of America, but here, sir, no dangers, no 
insurrection or tumult, has happened: everything has been calm 
and tranquil. But notwithstanding this, we are wandering on 
the great ocean of human affairs. I see no landmark to guide us. 
We are running we know not whither. Difference in opinion 
has gone to a degree of inflammatory resentment in different 
parts of the country, which has been occasioned by this perilous 
innovation. The Federal Confederation ought to have amended 
the old system; for this purpose they were solely delegated: the 
object of their mission extended to no other consideration. You 
must, therefore, forgive the solicitation of one worthy member 
to know what danger could have arisen under the present confed¬ 
eration, and what are the causes of this proposal to change our 
government. 


227 






FAREWELL 


by 


HENRY CLAY 



















































































































































































































































































































Farewell 


By 


Henry Clay 


From his Farewell Address delivered 
to the United States Senate in 1842. 


From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble 
theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been 
engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the serv¬ 
ices rendered during that long and arduous period of my life 
it does not become me to speak. History, if she deign to notice 
me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall 
be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most 
impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sen¬ 
tence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. My public 
conduct is a fair subject for the criticism and judgment of my 
fellow men; but the motives by which I have been prompted are 
known only to the great Searcher of the human heart and to my¬ 
self ; and I trust I may be pardoned for repeating a declaration 
made some thirteen years ago, that, whatever errors—and doubt¬ 
less there have been many—may be discovered in a review of 
my public service, I can with unshaken confidence appeal to 
that divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration, that I have 
been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive; 
have sought no personal aggrandizement; but that in all my pub¬ 
lic acts I have had a single eye directed, and a warm and devoted 
heart dedicated, to what, in my best judgment, I believed the 
true interests, the honor, the union, and the happiness of my 
country required. 

During that long period, however, I have not escaped the 
fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and de¬ 
traction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant 
character; and though not always insensible to the pain it was 
meant to inflict, I have borne it in general with composure, and 
without disturbance here (pointing to his breast), waiting, as I 
have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence for the ultimate 
triumph of justice and of truth, and the entire persuasion that 
time would settle all things as they should be, and that what¬ 
ever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, 
He to whom all hearts are open, and fully known, would, by the 
inscrutable dispensations of His providence, rectify all error, 
redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done. 


231 


FAREWELL 


But I have not, meanwhile, been unsustained. Everywhere 
throughout the extent of this great continent, I have had cordial, 
warm-hearted, faithful and devoted friends, who have known me, 
loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language 
were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would 
not offer all the return I have the power to make for their genu¬ 
ine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attach¬ 
ment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with 
never-ceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language 
to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have 
shown me, what shall I say, what can I say, at all commensurate 
with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired 
by the State whose humble representative and servant I have 
been in this chamber? 

I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Kentucky, now 
nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy, who had 
not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognized 
a father’s smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, penniless, 
without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected 
education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and com¬ 
mon pursuits of life; but scarcely had I set my foot upon her 
generous soil when I was embraced with parental fondness, 
caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized 
with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the 
highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; 
and when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction, I seemed 
to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her 
broad and impenetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that 
were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name 
from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with 
indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with 
the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that State; and 
when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my 
earthly remains will be laid upon her green sod with those of 
her gallant and patriotic sons. 

I go from this place under the hope that we shall, mutually, 
consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal collisions may 
at any time unfortunately have occurred between us, and that 
our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of 
mind with mind, those intellectual struggles, those noble exhibi¬ 
tions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable 
to the Senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and 
contended for what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing 
one common object—the interest and happiness of our beloved 
country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes it will be my 
pleasure and my pride to look back in my retirement with un¬ 
measured satisfaction. 


232 


FAREWELL 


In retiring, as I am about to do, forever, from the Senate, 
suffer me to express my heartfelt wishes that all the great and 
patriotic objects of the wise framers of our Constitution may be 
fulfilled; that the high destiny designed for it may be fully an¬ 
swered ; and that its deliberations, now and hereafter, may event¬ 
uate in securing the prosperity of our beloved country, in main¬ 
taining its rights and honor abroad, and upholding its interests 
at home. I retire, I know, at a period of infinite distress and em¬ 
barrassment. I wish I could take my leave of you under more 
favorable auspices; but without meaning at this time to say 
whether on any or on whom reproaches for the sad condition of 
the country should fall, I appeal to the Senate and to the world to 
bear testimony to my earnest and continued exertions to avert 
it, and to the truth that no blame can justly attach to me. 

May the most precious blessings of heaven rest upon the 
whole Senate and each member of it, and may the labors of every 
one rebound to the benefit of the nation and the advancement of 
his own fame and renown. And when you shall retire to the 
bosom of your constituents, may you receive that most cheering 
and gratifying of all human rewards—their cordial greeting of 
"Well done, good and faithful servant.” 

And now, Mr. President and Senators, I bid you all a long, 
a lasting, and a friendly farewell. 


233 




THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT 


by 


DANIEL WEBSTER 






. 










































































































































































































































































































































































The American Experiment 

By 

Daniel Webster 


From the Centennial Oration on 
Washington, 1832. 


Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of 
liberty was struck out in his own country which has since kindled 
into flame and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a 
century from his birth, the world has changed in science, in 
arts, in the extent of commerce, in the improvement of naviga¬ 
tion, and in all that relates to the civilization of man. But it is 
the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, 
in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole 
train of other improvements, which has most remarkably dis¬ 
tinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its 
progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity 
in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed 
round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a 
new character; it has raised itself from beneath government to a 
participation in governments; it has mixed moral and political 
objects with the daily pursuits of individual men; and, with a 
freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has applied 
to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. It 
has been the era, in short, when the social principle has 
triumphed over the feudal principle; when society has main¬ 
tained its rights against military power, and established, on 
foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency to 
govern itself. 

It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington, that, hav¬ 
ing been intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the supreme 
military command, and having fulfilled that trust with equal 
renown for wisdom and for valor, he should be placed at the 
head of the first government in which an attempt was made on a 
large scale to rear the fabric of a social order on the basis of 
a written constitution and of a pure representative principle. A 
government was to be established, without a throne, without 
an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or priviliges and this 
government, instead of being a democracy existing and acting 
within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over a vast 
country of different climates, interests, and habits, and of var¬ 
ious communions of our common Christian faith. The experi- 


237 


THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT 


ment certainly was entirely new. A popular government of this 
extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into 
full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; 
and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength 
of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, 
carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to politi¬ 
cal renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this ex¬ 
periment so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so 
full in interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and 
in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under 
the guidance of Washington. Destined for this high career, he 
was fitted for it by wisdom, by virtue, by patriotism, by discre¬ 
tion, by whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man. In 
entering on the untried scene early disappointment and the pre¬ 
mature extinction of all hope of success would have been cer¬ 
tain, had it not been that there did exist throughout the country, 
in a most extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who 
stood at the helm. 

I remarked, gentlemen, that the whole world was and is in¬ 
terested in the result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do 
we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment the career 
which this government is running is among the most attractive 
objects to the civilized world? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it 
true at this moment that love of liberty and that understand¬ 
ing of its true principles which are flying over the whole earth, 
as on the wings of all the winds, are really and truly of American 
origin ? 

At the period of the birth of Washington there existed in 
Europe no political liberty in large communities, except in the 
provinces of Holland, and except that England herself had set a 
great example, so far as it went, by her glorious Revolution of 
1688. Everywhere else, despotic power was predominant, and 
the feudal or military principle held the mass of mankind in 
hopeless bondage. One half of Europe was crushed beneath the 
Bourbon sceptor, and no conception of political liberty, no hope 
even of religious toleration, existed within that nation which was 
America’s first ally. The king was the state, the king was the 
country, the king was all. There was one king, with power de¬ 
rived from his people, and too high to be questioned and the rest 
were all subjects, with no political right but obedience. All 
above was intangible power, all below was quiet subjection. A 
recent occurrence in the French chamber shows us how public 
opinion on these subjects is changed. A minister had spoken of 
the “king’s subjects.” “There are no subjects,” exclaimed hun¬ 
dreds of voices at once, “in a country where the people make 
the king!” 

Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free gov¬ 
ernment, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in 


238 


THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT 


America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. 
Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not 
return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the 
earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, 
that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; 
that its benignity is as great as its strength; that its efficiency 
to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is 
equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principali¬ 
ties and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us 
with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep 
and awful anxiety is to learn whether free States may be stable, 
as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted as well 
as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self- 
government is a vision for the contemplation of theorists or a 
truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the 
country of Washington. 

Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole 
circle, of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem 
to hold in our hands, for their weal and woe, the fate of this 
experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If 
our example shall prove to be one not of encouragement, but of 
terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where 
else shall the world look for free models. If this great Western 
Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall 
the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall 
emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world ? 


239 





THE SUNSHINE OF LIFE 


by 


GEORGE M. D. POSEY 














































































»» 










































































































I 
































































































. 










* 


















































THE SUNSHINE OF LIFE 


A painter’s masterpiece will fade, marble may crumble, na¬ 
tions and empires may fall, those whom we called our friends 
may desert us, our money may take wings and fly away, but the 
brotherhood of Love and the love, laughter and song of the 
righteous man will ever remain, leading us through the dark 
hours of sorrow out into the sunshine of life. 

Let us remember that sorrow, pain and suffering is but the 
resultant of man’s violation of the laws of God, nature or man. 

So as we go through life let us lend a hand and speak a kind 
word and endeavor to cultivate happiness within and say with 
Foss: 


“Let me live in my house by the side of the road, 
Where the race of men goes by. 

They are good, they are bad, 

They are weak, they are strong, 

Wise, foolish—so am I. 

“Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat 
Or hurl the cynic’s ban? 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road 
And be a friend to man.” 


247 


























A GROUP OF SPEECHES 


by 


H. H. BROACH 








Man—Blind, Greedy and Brutal 

By 

H. H. Broach 


An address given to a luncheon club 
made up of both men and women. 


It is not a very pleasant thing to talk frankly and bluntly 
about man—man as he was, and man as he is—blind, deceitful, 
greedy and brutal. I asked your committee just what prompted 
them to suggest such a subject, and was told that during your 
discussions the question was asked, “How can there be any hope, 
how can there be any real progress, when the average man shows 
the evil passions that he does?" 

And sometimes the future does seem somewhat hopeless 
when you come to think of it. Here men are fighting like savage 
beasts, as the animals used to fight. Here they are cheating and 
stealing from one another, as the stronger animals stole from 
the weak. Here they are, hundreds of millions of them, followers 
of the great Teacher who gave as His chief commandment, 
“Love one another.” And they cover the earth with churches 
in His honor; they bow down before His teachings, and every 
Sunday they repeat, “Love one another.” But every day they 
continue hating, cheating and killing one another. 

And sometimes it looks as if man will go right on forever 
hating and fighting, cheating and sacrificing, and stinging and 
slaughtering his brothers and sisters. 

But there is hope—hope because man has advanced, and 
will continue to advance, in spite of himself, in spite of his arro¬ 
gance, his blindness, his selfishness and his brutality. Why it’s 
only a few years since he crushed the bones of his brothers in 
iron boots; cut off their lips and eye lids, pulled out their finger 
nails; jerked out their tongues, gouged out their eyes; tore at 
their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; burned them 
at the stake, mocked their cries and groans, and ravished their 
wives and robbed their children and then prayed to God to finish 
the job in hell. 

That was man—man in all his glory. 

For thousands of years he believed that disease and health, 
happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune, success and fail- 


251 


MAN, BLIND, GREEDY AND BRUTAL 


ure, were but arrows shot at him by shadowy ghosts. He be¬ 
lieved that when these citizens of the air, fires and waters, were 
pleased or displeased by his actions, that they blessed the earth 
with harvest or cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved 
children at will, and crowned and uncrowned kings overnight. 
These ghosts were his school masters, his physicians and scien¬ 
tists, his philosophers and legislators, his judges and historians 
of the past—in short, everything. 

Then man was a helpless slave to ignorance and fear, and 
down on his knees half the time to these aristocrats of the clouds, 
the fires and waters. He went to them for all information, for 
authority and orders to torture and kill. He was like a bat living 
in darkness. Ignorance covered the brain of the world; super¬ 
stition ran riot, and torture and murder occupied the throne. 

Fellow human beings were burned for causing frost in sum- 
er; for destroying crops with hail, for causing storms and mak¬ 
ing cows go dry. They believed the devil had taken possession of 
certain dumb beasts, so they tried, convicted and executed these 
helpless animals with all due solemnity. They tried, convicted 
and duly executed roosters for laying eggs containing witch oint¬ 
ment. 

They went through the streets and alleys warning all rats 
and snakes to leave by a certain time or else suffer the same fate 
as the roosters; and they passed a law in the state of Minnesota 
setting aside certain days for fasting and prayer to see if the 
Lord could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers or send them 
to another state. 

Yes, that was man—man who now is so cocky and boasts 
so proudly about his “glorious past”—his “gallant” ancestors. 

He hated and fought progress as bitterly as he now fights 
smallpox. Whenever a doubting Thomas came forth and said, 
“I don’t believe we have any enemies in the air or fires or waters 
watching every move we make”—the others cried, “Stone him; 
throw him on the torture rack; start the fire. He’s against re¬ 
ligion; he will corrupt the youth; he will break up the home. 
Away with him.” 

When a thinking brother came along and said, “You can’t 
frighten diseases away, but you can cure them”—the others 
cried, “Down with him; crucify him; he’s against morality; he’s 
against the church; he doubts the elders. Put him away”—and 
they did. 

When the inquisitive fellow came along and started to gaze 
at the sky through a telescope, the believers in “things as they 
are,” the aged and mental defectives, cried, “Fool! doubter; 


252 


MAN, BLIND, GREEDY AND BRUTAL 


atheist! club him; he’s against God; he’s against the king; he’s 
against government; heat the oil red hot; imprison him in the 
cave. Be done with him.” 

And when a studious brother discovered how to read and 
write, the upholders of the old faith, then as now, cried, “Chain 
him; confine him under the hill; he is a disturber of the peace; 
he’s against law and order; he will incite riot and rebellion; he 
will bring shame and disgrace on our ‘best’ people; he wants free 
love, free booze, free everything. Lynch him. Put him away.” 
And they did. 

When the young enthusiast from Italy came forth and said, 
“The world is round; there are other lands; I can sail over the 
Atlantic; give me ships and I will prove it.” The others cried, 
“He’s crazy; this Columbo is a nut; stone him; mock him; get rid 
of him.” And when the sanitarily inclined American gentleman 
rigged up a bath tub for himself, the other brothers, the intelli¬ 
gent and able lawyers in the legislatures, cried, “Drown him; 
hang him; he will spread sickness; he will teach people bad 
habits. Pass laws to make him get rid of that bath tub.” And 
they did. 

So it has been with man all down through the ages—through 
every page of history, blotted and smeared with blood, with 
selfishness and blindness. 

And the pitiful part, the most shameful part, is that so many 
of our present day men, men who claim to be “civilized,” still 
cling desperately to the ignorant, brutal beliefs and dogmas of 
the dark past. They would gladly turn out all lights of reason 
and throw away all brains; they would bring back the torture 
racks, the whips and chains and dungeon keys—if only they 
could. 

But fortunately, man is young, and the earth will last hun¬ 
dreds of millions of years longer, according to the best of scien¬ 
tists. The brain of the world is not yet fully developed. And 
while we still have intellectual diseases—intellectual mumps and 
measles—the new will continue to come, and the old will continue 
to protest and fight, then shrivel and wrinkle up and finally be 
carried off mournfully to the grave. 

So we need not despair. The miracle of miracles is yet to 
come. Man has conquered the animals of the wilderness; he has 
conquered the air, the lightning and waters; he has diverted 
rivers from their course, bored holes through mountains and 
made lakes and dams at will—but he has yet to conquer himself 
—to rule himself. 


253 


MAN, BLIND, GREEDY AND BRUTAL 


And perhaps the time will come when men will marvel that 
there ever was a period when they called themselves “civilized,” 
yet hated, cheated and sacrificed, clubbed and slaughtered one 
another like wild beasts without mercy or shame. 

And perhaps the man of tomorrow will not curse and dis¬ 
grace his land with insane asylums and poor-houses; with jails, 
and gallows; with illiterates and defectives; and perhaps he will 
manage somehow to get along without wholesale lies, hypocrisy 
and murder. Who knows? 


254 


Enemies 

By 

H. H. Broach 


From a short talk to a conference 
of representative men. 


I quite agree with what the others have said—that if this 
conference decides to follow the course outlined, it will mean a 
number of new enemies—and bitter ones—for every one in this 
room. 

Of course it will. And why ? Simply because those you are 
trying to serve, humans that they are, demand that you do some¬ 
thing which they would positively refuse to do were they placed 
in your positions and knew the facts as you know them; and 
many of them will believe only what they want to believe— 
nothing else. This you are powerless to prevent. 

But what of it? Why be afraid to make a few enemies? 
Most of you will admit that the proposed action is right, that it 
is just and timely. Then why worry about enemies, for enemies 
you will have. There is nothing more common or certain. 

You know that in this race of life you are either too radical 
or too conservative; too slow or too aggressive; too emotional or 
too sentimental; too hard or too soft; too greedy, careless or 
changeable. And you simply cannot seem right to any unless you 
seem wrong to many. 

And show me the man who is not making himself new ene¬ 
mies every day, and I will show you a worthless, insignificant 
creature who is simply cheating the undertaker out of his just 
dues. All faultless people are under the ground. 

So our main concern here should be that what we do is just 
and proper, and that it be done just as well as we know how. 
And we should strive to lift ourselves up and above a lack of ap¬ 
preciation and a want of kindness on the part of others. 

But you can disregard this view if you wish, you can hold 
back because you fear what others might think. That is the 
easiest course to follow. But if you are wise you will do as all 
wise men do, and that is, bow to the inevitable and go through 
with what you know to be right. This I urge you to do. 

255 


Tears and Progress 


By 


H. H. Broach 


From a short talk made to a New 
Year’s gathering. 


It’s very pleasing to come to such an unusual affair of this 
sort, and join with you in seeing the old year pass on its way. 
And what a year it has been—misery and suffering, work and 
struggles, disappointments and disillusions, tears and sorrows, 
and some progress—just the age-old story of life. 

Perhaps you know its story only too well. And there is no 
use going back over the things that have been done foolishly, 
for now the year is about dead. All our mistakes and failures, 
our stupidities and follies, our heartaches and wounds—all these 
miseries that have gone to make life weary in the past year, all 
of them are now behind us, gone into what we call the past, never 
to return. 

Just now, as usual, many are happy, or think they are. 
Many more are sad. And we might well say to the greedy and 
heartless, to those who are not disturbed about little human 
beings ministering to our needs and pleasures, who think it all 
right that tender hands and weary little bodies should slave away 
in the beet fields and canneries, in the factories and in the mines; 
to those who are quite willing that millions of desperate, hungry 
men and women should now tramp the streets begging and plead¬ 
ing for a chance to work—to each and every one of these, we 
might well say: “Eat, drink and be merry, if you can, while 
others are in misery, rags and tears.” We might wish them well, 
for the holiday season comes but once a year. 

And to those who are weary and discouraged, whose hearts 
are heavy and sad; to the bread winner who could not secure 
enough to provide the little things that go to cheer the young and 
the old, and to those who are tired and who would willingly give 
up the struggle—to each and every one of them, we might well 
say: “Sorrow, pain and discouragement come to everyone. No 
one escapes them. Set-backs have been the lot of all. Changes 
often come suddenly and unexpectedly. So don’t be without 
hope. The past cannot be changed. We must make the best of 
it. But the future is ours—ours to do or die.” 


256 


TEARS AND PROGRESS 


What the new year holds in store for us, no one knows. We 
know it will not be a summer’s dream. The struggle and quar¬ 
rel between men, the cheating and hating, will go merrily on. 
And the mad race for money, power and position will not come 
to an end. Each of us will continue to be tossed about on the sea 
of fate, driven here and there, and each one will do about the 
best he knows how. New ones will join us in the race of life, 
without their consent, and old ones will depart against their will 
—bound they know not where. Most of us who remain will sim¬ 
ply take life as it is, living on, hoping and dreaming, loving and 
striving, and nerving ourselves to meet the hard rebuffs of life. 

That’s the game and we must play it. But the game is still 
on, and we now know more of life; we know more about one an¬ 
other; we possess more knowledge; the past year has taught 
each one of us lessons of priceless value. We have learned that 
our problems, our weaknesses and shortcomings, cannot be cured 
by closing our eyes or running away from foes, and we can do 
what we ought to do, and can be what we ought to be—if we will 
make up our minds and stick to our highest hopes, not to our 
doubts and fears. 


267 


Head Work 


By 

H. H. Broach 


From a short address to a group of 
workmen during education week. 


Men like to be flattered. They like to be told things they 
most want to hear, rather than things they most need to know. 
They like to be led to believe that they are something which they 
are not. 

But I shall not attempt to flatter you and tell you that you 
are brainy men, for you know that I would be telling an untruth. 
I shall leave that to the quacks and office seekers. Rather I am 
going to speak plainly—even bluntly—and frankly tell you that 
there is a vast amount of ignorance in your ranks, and you must 
be broad enough to recognize and admit it. 

There is always this difference between a sensible, useful 
man, and an ignorant, foolish man: The one is ignorant and 
knows it, while the other is ignorant and does not know it. And 
the thing that always marks out the sensible, useful man, is his 
willingness to say, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” This was the 
favorite remark of Socrates, the Greek philosopher, and perhaps 
the world’s wisest man. 

And one of the unfailing signs of an ignorant, foolish man, 
one of the things that always stamps him out from the rest, is 
his ready desire to appear to know what he does not. He is 
always the cockiest and most egotistic, because he is the silliest 
and most ignorant. But he is always found out—to his disad¬ 
vantage and sorrow. 

It is very difficult to tell him anything, because he never 
made a mistake; he never lost an argument—and he will admit 
absolutely nothing. His ignorance will not permit him to, be¬ 
cause he mistakes his ignorance for facts. So he is to be pitied— 
deeply pitied. 

It is only the humble-minded man that ever really learns— 
that can learn—and he does not become humble-minded until he 
begins to recognize his own limitations, until he begins to see 
that there is so much which he does not know, and until he be¬ 
comes broad enough to frankly admit it. 


258 


HEAD WORK 


Now most of you admire what we call head work. You pay 
dearly for it. You make your children study for it. You make 
your children study to display it. You send them to school for 
this purpose—to study—and yet you neglect to do the very thing 
that you insist upon your children doing. 

Certainly you ought to be able to see the need of it without 
a week being set aside to remind you of it. Your employer sees 
it. He realizes the great value of it. He studies much of his 
time. He studies prices. He studies business conditions. He 
studies the market. He studies you. That explains why he is an 
employer and you an employee: it explains why you work for 
him instead of his working for you. 

Now I well know that this kind of talk will probably not 
appeal to many of you. If it does you are an exception—an ex¬ 
ception because most men resent anything that disturbs their 
mental repose. They fight all mental effort. They don’t want 
to be bothered; they want to be let alone. 

It’s so much easier for them to read about the doings of the 
Gumps or to follow the antics of Spark Plug from day to day. 
They want pictures—something where the answer is always put 
before them without having to inquire about it, or to dig for it. 

But if you are an exception, if you want to push yourselves 
forward and be of greater service and get the most out of life; 
if you want to know how you can be the most efficient, how you 
can make your strength count for the most, stop making wild 
guesses and take the trouble to inquire and investigate. When 
you do you will be taking the first step toward knowledge. 

So start now to play square with your children. Do what 
you demand of them. Devote as much time as possible to study, 
to developing your minds and to educating yourselves in a sound 
way. As long as you are not too old to laugh, talk and play, you 
are not too old to study and learn. 

Study and carefully weigh all sides to every question, and by 
all means stop, and stop now, reading the cheap fiction that lulls 
you to sleep and keeps you going around in a daze. 


259 



























SECTION TWO 














































































































































- • 

























































HOW TO CONDUCT MEETINGS 


by 

M. H. HEDGES 










































































































. 






















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*• 










































































- • 










































































How to Conduct Meetings 

By 

M. H. Hedges 


Editorial Note: No exposition of the 
principles of parliamentary law, how¬ 
ever brief can be prepared without 
reference to the standard work, 
“Rules of Order, Revised” by Henry 
M. Robert. We hereby acknowledge 
our indebtedness to Mr. Robert, and 
to his father, for frequent consulta¬ 
tions of their book. Our debt to E. 
W. Hawley, instructor in parliamen¬ 
tary law, University of Minnesota, 
who has freely given suggestions in 
the preparation of this miniature 
rules of order, is also gratefully ac¬ 
knowledged. Mr. Hawley is a friend 
of General Robert and has often had 
his personal assistance in ironing out 
technical points of law. 


If you will stop to think a moment you will at once under¬ 
stand that a meeting of any kind would soon turn into a “howling 
mob” without rules to govern its conduct. 

These rules of conduct, or rules of order, or parliamentary 
law, as they are called, have grown up through long years of 
precedent in such bodies as the English House of Commons, and 
the United States Congress. 

Though infinitely complex, and infinitely technical still like 
every other science, parliamentary law reduces itself to a few 
principles which if mastered by the student will enable him to go 
into a meeting and secure the action desired. But the student 
must master them, and then have courage in applying them. 

Rules of order have these primary purposes: 

To insure the rule of the majority. 

To protect the minority, and to give it a right to be 
heard. 

To accord certain equal personal privileges to every 
member of the assembly. 

To insure orderly and speedy transaction of busi¬ 
ness, by introducing, discussing and disposing of 

• one subject at a time. 

Naturally these rules must be enforced by someone. The 
ultimate authority is the will-, of the majority. For all normal 


HOW TO CONDUCT MEETINGS 


purposes, it is the presiding officer, be he temporary or acting 
chairman, president of the organization, or permanent mod¬ 
erator. 

The first step in the organization of any meeting, therefore, 
is to name a chairman. This is usually done by motion of some¬ 
one active in calling the occasional meeting. He steps to the 
front and says: “The meeting will please come to order. I 
move that Mr. White, or Mr. Jones act as chairman of the meet¬ 
ing." 

Someone in the audience says: “I second the motion.” The 
motion is then put by the self-appointed leader, and when passed, 
Mr. Jones or Mr. White is called to the chair and begins to con¬ 
duct. 


Other officers are then elected, secretary first, then usually 
vice-chairman, and treasurer. Committees are named on motion 
from the floor, or selected by an executive committee so named 
or appointed by the chair. 

In meetings of bodies already organized, and with standing 
officers, these preliminaries are, of course, dispensed with. 

The formula, or agency, by which business is introduced 
into an assembly is the motion. A somewhat more formal 
method is the resolution. In city councils there is the ordinance, 
and in legislative assemblies there is the bill or act. 

The form of the motion is usually, “Mr. Chairman, or Mr. 

President, I move that.” followed by a statement of 

the desired action. 

For instance, “Mr. President, I move that this organization 
donate $500 for foreign relief.” 

The correct progress of this, or of any other motion intro¬ 
duced through the assembly, is as follows: 

(a) A member rises and addresses the chair. 

(b) The chair recognizes the mover. 

(c) The member states his motion. 

(d) It is seconded, or is lost for want of a second. 

(e) If seconded,—it is nearly always necessary that the 
motions be seconded,—the presiding officer restates 
the motion, so that each member of the audience 
may gain a clear impression of it. 

(f) The motion is debated, unless undebatable. 

(g) The motion goes to vote. It may be modified by 
amendment. 

(h) The result of the vote is announced. 

266 



HOW TO CONDUCT MEETINGS 


These simple rules govern debate: 

(a) Only one person may speak at a time. 

(b) The speaker must first gain the floor by recognition 
of the chair before he attempts to speak. 

(c) A person may speak only once if others, who have 
not spoken, are clamoring for the floor, unless he be 
accorded special privilege by the chair or by the 
assembly. 

(d) A speaker must speak only on the motion. 

(e) Debate may be limited by the assembly. 

In view of the fact that main motions are the principal 
agencies, by which business is transacted, most conflicts center 
in motions, their introduction into the meeting and their prog¬ 
ress. 


When a motion is introduced, if it does not meet the ap¬ 
proval of an individual or section of the assembly, it may be 
amended. A mover gains the floor and says: “Mr. Chairman, 
I move to amend the motion to read that this organization do¬ 
nate $1,000 to foreign relief.” The amendment must be 
seconded. Then the amendment may, in turn, be amended. Here, 
however, changes cease, as a motion to amend an amendment to 
an amendment is not in order. After amendments are debated, 
but debate must be confined to amendment, the chair then puts 
the amendment to the amendment, then the amendment, and 
finally the motion as amended. 

The course of a motion through an assembly may follow 
these paths: 

1. Motion may be modified in order to lessen or to harshen 
its intent, and for various other reasons. 

(a) By amendment, as described above. (Must 
pass by majority vote.) 

(b) By reference to a committee for modifications. 
(Majority vote.) 

2. Motion may be side-tracked or delayed. 

(a) By a postponement to a special time. (Major¬ 
ity vote.) 

(b) By being made special order of business. 

(c) By being laid on table. This motion is unde- 
debatable. (Majority vote.) 

(d) By motion to adjourn, which takes precedence 
over all motions except motion to fix time to which 
to adjourn, and is undebatable. (Majority vote.) 

267 


HOW TO CONDUCT MEETINGS 


3. Motion may be suppressed. 

(a) By objection to its consideration. (Two-thirds 
vote.) 

(b) By moving previous question, and thereby kill¬ 
ing it. 

(c) By being postponed indefinitely. (Majority 
vote.) 

(d) By being laid on table. (Majority vote.) 

4. Debate may be limited. 

(a) By moving the previous question. Previous 
question doesn’t mean anything connected with the 
word previous but refers to main motion before the 
house. If this is carried by two-thirds vote it ends 
all debate without further amendments. It is un- 
debatable. 

(b) By fixing limit of debate. (Two-thirds vote.) 

5. Motion may be reconsidered. 

(a) By being taken from table. (Majority vote.) 

(b) By vote for reconsideration. (Majority vote.) 

(c) By vote to rescind previous action. (Majority 
vote if notice has been given at previous meeting, 
then either two-thirds, or vote of majority of whole 
membership.) 

The simplest order of business for organizations is as fol¬ 
lows: 

1. Reading of Minutes of previous Meeting. 

2. Reports of Standing Committees. 

3. Reports of Special Committees. 

4. Unfinished Business. 

. 5. New Business. 

The student should secure for himself a good book on parlia¬ 
mentary law. The standard reference is “Rules of Order Re¬ 
vised” by Henry M. Robert. “Text-Book on Parliamentary Law” 
by Hall and Sturgis is excellent for its simplicity. Henry M. 
Shattuck has a book called “Shattuck’s Parliamentary Answers” 
that serves as a swift and useful guide. 


'268 


HOW TO USE A LIBRARY 


by 


M. H. HEDGES 


How to Use a Library 

By 

M. H. Hedges 


Only the fool despises learning. No man who knows the 
alphabet needs remain ignorant. 

All industry, all government, the skill of all workmen, and 
all art, rest in and spring from knowledge. 

Trade unions have recognized this fact in their recent em¬ 
ployment of engineers and accountants to study industry from 
the trade union point of view, and to present the results to gov¬ 
ernment commissions, and in the founding of classes and schools 
for trade unionists. Even Henry Ford, who sneers at history 
and knowledge of the past, purchases the best engineering talent 
—men who know—for his railroads and factories. A large 
mail order house in Chicago has a library of 15,000 volumes for 
its employes. Every salesman and every department head must 
consult this library to fit himself for his job. A Detroit news¬ 
paper has a library of 25,000 volumes, and eight librarians. 
Every city and every college has great collections of books— 
indeed one view of education, is that it simply is knowing how 
to find knowledge and to use it. 

Unfortunately, however, many students, who have set out 
upon a course of self-instruction, fail to take advantage of the 
library in their own city. They are scared off by the formidable 
array of material before them, or they are indifferent to what 
the library offers. Students should remember: 

1. The public library is a free institution. It belongs to the stu¬ 
dent, and he may have free access to all its departments. 

2. The public library is a great department store of knowledge 
which contains valuable material on every conceivable sub¬ 
ject;—sealing wax and kings, cabbages and cats, carburetors 
and zebras, love and Marxianism, the solar system and So¬ 
vietism, medicine and meal. No subject under the sun re¬ 
mains untreated before you. 

3. This knowledge has been assorted, arranged, systemized, 
and made accessible to you for the taking. Trained librar¬ 
ians will aid you to get it, and no man who knows the al¬ 
phabet needs to remain ignorant if he will only use his 
library. 


271 


HOW TO USE A LIBRARY 


Libraries are divided into the following departments: 

General circulation 

Reference 

Art 

Documents 

Magazine 

Newspaper 

From the general circulation department, you may draw 
fiction and non-fiction of current interest to take home. 

In the reference department are the books, and periodicals 
not in general circulation, which you may use for study. 

In the document room is a valuable store of government 
papers, congressional records, reports of commissions, etc.—a 
hoard of knowledge—a library in itself too much neglected by 
students. 

How is all this vast collection systemized? Simply by giv¬ 
ing each book and author a number, and by placing the number, 
the author’s name, and the title of his book on a card; and by 
placing these cards in a case, in alphabetical order. If the stu¬ 
dent knows the author’s name or the general subject, or the title 
he is interested in, he can find his book. 

Here is the system. It is called the Dewey Decimal System 
and is spaced on a basis of 1000 points. The ten large divisions 
are: 

000 General. Works 

100 Philosophy (Science of Wisdom) 

200 Religion 

300 Sociology (Science of Society) 

400 Philology (Science of Language) 

500 Natural Science 
600 Useful Arts 
700 Fine Arts 
800 Literature 

900 History . 

Each of these large divisions is: in turn divided into ten, 
thus: .• 


272 




HOW TO USE A LIBRARY 


300 

Sociology 

310 

Statistics 

320 

Political Science 

330 

Political Economy 

340 

Law 

350 

Administration 

360 

Associations 

370 

Education 

380 

Commerce 

390 

Customs 


So when the student wants Victor Hugo’s famous novel 
“Les Miserables,” he goes to the card catalogue for fiction books, 
and looks up under “H” Hugo or under “L” Les Miserables. 
This is what he finds 


895 h 1.1 


Hugo, Victor 1802-1885 
Les Miserables 


He writes these items on a slip provided for the purpose, and 
hands it to the librarian. 895 immediately indicates that the 
book belongs to the general division of literature; h 1. 1 signifies 
the author. With this data in hand, the librarian can go to the 
shelf and take down the desired book, for the shelves are num¬ 
bered correspondingly. 

Now a great deal of valuable knowledge never gets into books 
at all, but is contained in magazines. These magazines are on 
file. They are indexed, too, in large volumes titled “Readers’ 
Index to Periodical Literature 1910-1915.” By knowing the name 
of an author, or title of his magazine article, or the general sub¬ 
ject in which interested, the student can find the name of the 
magazine, the volume, and the page number containing the article 
desired. ^ . J 

Magazines are usually kept in the reference room. In addi¬ 
tion, all kinds of reference books are placed on open shelves in 
this room for the student’s use: 


273 




HOW TO USE A LIBRARY 


Dictionaries 

Encyclopedias 

Who’s Who 

Who’s Who in America 

Collections of Orations 

Proceedings of Learned Societies 

Book Publishers’ Lists, etc. 

In most cities, a municipal library branch supplies business 
men, local government officials and other citizens with books 
and reference material having to do with industry, commerce 
and politics. 

Learn to use your library. Make a habit of loafing before 
open book shelves. Read titles of books. Read, and keep a scrap¬ 
book of material that appeals to you. In this way, and this way 
only, you will grow into an effective person. 


274 


SECTION THREE 


Scrap Book Section 









SCRAP BOOK SECTION 

l/ 


S far back as we know anything 
about civilization, the cultivation 
of the soil has been the first and most 
important industry in any thriving 
state. It will always be. Herodotus, 
the father of history, tells the story of 
the human race in the valley of the 
Euphrates. 

He says that with poor cultivation 
those who tilled soil there got a yield 
of fifty fold, with fair cultivation one 
hundredfold, and with good cultiva¬ 
tion two hundredfold. That was the 
garden of the world in its day. Its 
great cities, Babylon and Nineveh, 
where are they? Piles of desert sand 
mark where they stood. In place of 
the millions that over-ran the world, 
there are a few wandering Arabs feed¬ 
ing half-starved sheep and goats. The 
Promised Land—The Land of Canaan 
itself—to which the Children of Israel 
were brought up from Egypt, what is 
it now? 

A land overflowing with milk and 
honey? Today it has neither milk nor 
honey. It is a barren waste of desert, 
peopled by scattered robber bands. A 
provision of Providence fertilized the 
soil of the valley of the Nile by over¬ 
flowing it every year. From the earli¬ 
est records that history gives, Egypt 
has been a land of remarkable crops; 
and today the land thus fertilized by 
overflow is yielding more abundantly 
than ever. 


/~\RATORY offers the acme of hu- 
man delight; it offers the nectar 
that Jupiter sips; it offers the draft 
that intoxicates the gods, the divine 
felicity of lifting up and swaying man¬ 
kind. There is nothing greater on this 
earth. ’Tis the breath of the Eternal 
—the kiss of the Immortal. 


Oratory is far above houses and lands, 
office and emoluments, possessions and 
power. 

While it may secure all of these it must 
not for a moment be classed with them. 
These things offer nothing that is 
worthy of a high ambition. Enjoyed to 
their fullest, they leave you hard, wrin¬ 
kled and miserable. Get all they can 
give and the hand will be empty, the 
mind hungry, and the soul shriveled. 

Oratory is an individual accomplish¬ 
ment and no vicissitude of fortune can 
wrest it from the owner. It points the 
martyr’s path to the future; it guides 
the reaper’s hand in the present, and 
it turns the face of ambition toward 
the delectable hills of achievement. 
One great speech made to an intelli¬ 
gent audience in favor of the rights of 
man will compensate for a life of la¬ 
bor, will crown a career with glory, 
and give a joy that is born of the divin¬ 
ities. There is no true orator who is 
not also a hero. 


—John P. Altgeld. 

* * * 


It is made clear by every process of 
logic and by the proof of historic fact 
that the wealth of a nation, the char¬ 
acter of its people, the quality and per¬ 
manence of its institutions are all de¬ 
pendent upon sound and sufficient 
agricultural foundation. Not armies 
or navies of commerce or diversity of 
manufacture or anything other than 
the farm is the anchor which will hold 
through the storms of time that sweep 
all else away. 

—James J. Hill. 


TN Asiatic countries when you try to 
A cure a plague of the body, ignorant 
people at the bottom resent it, attack 
you and say you lack respect for law. 

In civilized countries like our own, 
when you try to cure the plague of 
poverty, ignorance at the top attacks 
you, says that you are interfering with 
what always has been, always will be, 
and SHOULD be, and that you show 
lack of respect for the law. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 


277 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


r 1 1 HERE is nothing to make one in- 
dignant in the mere fact that life 
is hard, that men should toil and suffer 
pain. The planetary conditions once 
for all are such, and we can stand it. 
But that so many men, by mere acci¬ 
dents of birth and opportunity, should 
have a life of nothing else but toil and 
pain and hardness and inferiority im¬ 
posed upon them, should have no vaca¬ 
tion, while others natively no more de¬ 
serving never get any taste of this 
campaigning life at all—this is capable 
of arousing indignation in reflective 
minds. It may end by seeming shame¬ 
ful to all of us that some of us have 
nothing but campaigning, and others 
nothing but unmanly ease. 

If now—and this is my idea—there 
were, instead of military conscription, 
a conscription of the whole youthful 
population to form for a certain num¬ 
ber of years a part of the army enlisted 
against Nature, the injustice would 
tend to be evened out, and numerous 
other goods to the commonwealth 
would follow. The military ideals of 
hardihood and discipline would be 
wrought into the growing fibre of the 
people; no one would remain blind, as 
the luxurious classes now are blind, 
to man’s real relations to the globe he 
lives on, and to the permanently sour 
and hard foundations of his higher life. 

To coal and iron mines, to freight 
trains, to fishing fleets in December, 
to dish-washing, clothes-washing, and 
window-washing, to road-building and 
tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke¬ 
holes, and to the frames of skyscrap¬ 
ers, would our gilded youths be drafted 
off, according to their choice to get the 
childishness knocked out of them, and 
to come back into society with health¬ 
ier sympathies and soberer ideas. They 
would have paid their blood-tax, done 
their own part in the immemorial hu¬ 
man warfare against nature, they 
should tread the earth more proudly, 
the women would value them more 
highly, they would be better fathers 
and teachers of the following genera¬ 
tion. 

Such a conscription, with the state of 
public opinion that would have re¬ 
quired it, and the many moral fruits 
it would bear, would preserve in the 
midst of a pacific civilization the man¬ 
ly virtues which the military party is 

278 


so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. 
We should get toughness without cal¬ 
lousness, authority with as little crim¬ 
inal cruelty as possible, and painful 
work done cheerily because the duty 
is temporary, and threatens not as now, 
to degrade the whole remainder of 
one’s life. 

—William James. 

* * * 

lV/TAN progresses. He was a poor, 
shivering creature on this earth 
a hundred thousand years ago, afraid 
of wind that roared through his cave, 
calling it a devil; afraid of lightning 
that flashed in the sky, imagining that 
the supreme God was trying to hit his 
poor little carcass. That same light¬ 
ning, the electric spark man uses in¬ 
side the engine of the flying machine 
that carries him through clouds where 
lightning flashes. He knows scientific 
truth and that makes him free of su¬ 
perstition and free to ride through the 
air. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 

* * * 


"VT O man will ever be a big executive 
who feels that he must, either 
openly or under cover, follow up every 
order he gives and see that it is done 
nor will he ever develop a capable as¬ 
sistant. 

—John Lee Mahin. 

* * * 

/"''O-OPERATION is not a sentiment 
^ —it is an economic necessity. 

—Charles Steinmetz. 

* * * 

\ LITTLE while ago, I stood by 
1 the grave of the old Napoleon—a 
magnificent sarcophagus of rare and 
nameless marble, where rest at last the 
ashes of the restless man. I leaned 
over the balustrade and thought about 
the career of the greatest soldier of the 
modern world. I saw him walking up¬ 
on the banks of the Seine, contemplat¬ 
ing suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I 
saw him putting down the mob in the 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


streets of Paris—I saw him at the head 
of the army of Italy—I saw him cross¬ 
ing the bridge of Lodi with the tri¬ 
color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt 
in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw 
him conquer the Alps and mingle the 
eagles of France with the eagles of the 
crags. 

I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and 
Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where 
the infantry of the snow and the cav¬ 
alry of the wild blast scattered his le¬ 
gions like winter’s withered leaves. I 
saw him at Leipsic in defeat and dis¬ 
aster—driven by a million bayonets 
back upon Paris—clutched like a wild 
beast—banished to Elba. I saw him 
escape and retake an empire by the 
force of his genius. I saw him upon 
the frightful field of Waterloo, where 
Chance and Fate combined to wreck 
the fortunes of their former king. And 
I saw him at St. Helena, with his 
hands crossed behind him, gazing out 
upon the sad and solemn sea. 

I thought of the orphans and widows 
he had made—of the tears that had 
been shed for his glory, and of the 
only woman who ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart by the cold hand 
of ambition. And I said I would rath¬ 
er have been a French peasant and 
worn wooden shoes. I would rather 
have lived in a hut with a vine grow¬ 
ing over the door, and the grapes grow¬ 
ing purple in the kisses of the autumn 
sun. I would rather have been the 
poor peasant with my loving wife by 
my side, knitting as the day died out 
of the sky—with my children upon my 
knees and their arms about me—I 
would rather have been that man and 
gone down to the tongueless silence of 
the dreamless dust, than to have been 
that imperial impersonation of force 
and murder, known as “Napoleon the 
Great.” 

—Robert G. Ingersoll. 

* * * 

A S long as the production of ammu- 
nition of war remains a private 
commercial undertaking, huge vested 
interests grow up around it which in¬ 
fluence public opinion through the press 
and otherwise in the direction of war. 
There is no doubt that the influence 
of Krupps has been harmful to the 


great peace interests of the world, and, 
in a less degree, the same could prob¬ 
ably be said of most other similar un¬ 
dertakings. 

The very success of that sort of busi¬ 
ness depends on the stimulation of the 
war atmosphere among the people. The 
press, influenced by the large profits 
and advertising enterprise of the arma¬ 
ment firms, whips up public opinion on 
every imaginable occasion; small for¬ 
eign incidents are written up and mag¬ 
nified into grave international situa¬ 
tions affecting the pacific relations of 
the states; and the war temperature is 
artificially raised and kept up. 

—General Smuts. 

* * * 

A LL business as now conducted— 
particularly those lines of busi¬ 
ness which embrace the so-called in¬ 
dustries—requires specialized training 
and technical education, in fact so 
much scientific knowledge that the dis¬ 
tinctive line between “business” and 
“profession” is fast disappearing. Any 
one who hopes to achieve success, even 
the average, must know more, or at 
least as much, about some one thing 
as any other one, and not only know, 
but know how to do—and how to util¬ 
ize his experience and knowledge for 
the benefit of others. 

The crying evil of the young man who 
enters the business world today is the 
lack of application, preparation, and 
thoroughness, with ambition but with¬ 
out the willingness to struggle to gain 
his desired end. Mental and physical 
strength come only through the exer¬ 
cise and working of mind and body. 
There is too little idea of personal re¬ 
sponsibility ; too much of “the world 
owes me a living,” forgetting that if 
the world does owe you a living you 
yourself must be your own collector. 

—Theodore N. Vail. 

* * * 

CO to conduct one’s life as to realize 
^ oneself—this seems to me the high¬ 
est attainment possible to a human 
being. It is the task of one and all of 
us, but most of us bungle it. 

—Ibsen. 


279 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


O E dissatisfied with your work espe- 
cially, for it is what you DO that 
counts, not what you think about your¬ 
self or what you imagine you will do 
in the future. Be satisfied with your 
supply of information and try to get 
more, no matter how much or how lit¬ 
tle you may have. The libraries are 
open and the knowledge is in them. 

Be dissatisfied with what you do for 
those that depend upon you or that 
have a right to depend upon you. Old 
Well Enough is a sleepy, harmful, dis¬ 
mal humbug. Don’t have him in your 
neighborhood. NEVER LET WELL 
ENOUGH ALONE — MAKE IT 
BETTER. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 


* * * 


T BELIEVE that, in future warfare, 
-*■ great cities, such as London, will be 
attacked from the air and that a fleet 
of 500 airplanes each carrying 500 ten- 
pound bombs of, let us suppose, mus¬ 
tard gas, might cause 200,000 minor 
casualties and throw the whole city 
into panic within half an hour of their 
arrival. 

Picture, if you can, what the result will 
be: London for several days will be 
one vast raving Bedlam, the hospitals 
will be stormed, traffic will cease, the 
homeless will shriek for help, the city 
will be in pandemonium. What of the 
government at Westminster? It will 
be swept away by an avalanche of ter¬ 
ror. Then will the enemy dictate his 
terms, which will be grasped like a 
straw by a drowning man. Thus may 
a war be won in forty-eight hours and 
the losses of the winning side may be 
actually nil! 

—Col. J. F. C. Fuller, D. S. O. 

# * 


A WISE man once said that when 
a plumber makes a mistake, he 
puts it in the bill. When a doctor 
makes a mistake, he buries it. When 
a judge makes a mistake it becomes 
the law. 

—John P. Frey. 


OR every three farmers in the 
United States there is some one 
behind a counter. For every four work¬ 
men in the factories of the United 
States there is a store clerk or a store 
manager or a store owner waiting to 
sell what the workmen produce. We 
think we have a lot of railroad men in 
the United States. We have; but it 
takes as many store clerks standing be¬ 
hind counters to sell goods to us as it 
does men to carry these goods in trans¬ 
portation, keep the railroads in re¬ 
pair and the rolling stock in good con¬ 
dition. For every 40 families in the 
United States there is a retail store. 
Struggling under this heavy burden, 
these American families have discov¬ 
ered that the job can not be done by 
having only one member of the family 
at work. 

It has actually come about that dad, 
who used to feed and clothe the old- 
fashioned American family of five per¬ 
sons, has found himself unable to hold 
up his end. Census figures indicate 
that at least one member of the family 
must assist dad to do the father’s part 
in keeping the retail stores in his com¬ 
munity alive. And at that he doesn’t 
do it. Five grocery men out of every 
100 fail every year. 

—Wm. G. Sheperd, addressing Annual 
Session Association of National Ad¬ 
vertisers, 1922. 

# * * 

HP O be in Hell is to drift; to be in 
Heaven is to steer. 

—G. B. Shaw. 

* * * 

r r HE twofoldness of human nature 

A is so obvious that some have 

thought that we have two souls; a sin¬ 
gle subject appears to them to be in¬ 
capable of such and so sudden changes 
—from unbounded presumption to a 
horrible depression of the heart. 

—Pascal. 

* * * 

T MAY be wrong, but it seems to me 
A that not one of the ancient civilized 
nations restricted the freedom of 
thought. 


280 


—Voltaire. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


T DO not remember that in my whole 
A life I ever wilfully misrepresented 
anything to anybody at any time. I 
have never knowingly had connection 
with a fraudulent scheme. I have tried 
to do good in this world, not harm, as 
my enemies would have the world be¬ 
lieve. I have helped men and have at¬ 
tempted in my humble way to be of 
some service to my country. 

—J. Pierpont Morgan. 

* * 

T AUGHTER, while it lasts, slack- 
^ ens and unbraces the mind, weak¬ 
ens the faculties, and causes a kind of 
remissness and dissolution in all the 
powers of the soul; and thus far it may 
be looked upon as a weakness in the 
composition of human nature. But if 
we consider the frequent reliefs we re¬ 
ceive from it, and how often it breaks 
the gloom which is apt to depress the 
mind and dampen our spirit, with tran¬ 
sient, unexpected gleams of joy, one 
would take care not to grow too wise 
for so great a pleasure of life. 

—Addison. 


* * 

TT is in the nature of things that those 
who are incapable of happiness 
should have no idea of it. Happiness 
is not for wild animals, who can only 
oscillate between apathy and passion. 
To be happy, even to conceive happi¬ 
ness, you must be reasonable or (if 
Nietzsche prefers the word) you must 
be tamed. You must have taken the 
measure of your powers, tasted the 
fruits of your passions and learned 
your place in the world and what 
things in it can really serve you. To 
be happy you must be wise. This hap¬ 
piness is sometimes found instinctive¬ 
ly, and then the rudest fanatic can 
hardly fail to see how lovely it is, but 
sometimes it comes of having learned 
something by experience (which em¬ 
pirical people never do) and involves 
some chastening and renunciation; 
but it is not less sweet for having this 
touch of holiness about it, and the 
spirit of it is healthy and beneficent. 

—George Santayana. 


W E . 

racy. 


must either breed political ca¬ 
pacity, or be ruined by Democ- 

—G. B. Shaw. 


T WISH to put a stop to Courts nulli- 
A fying laws which the people deem 
necessary to their general welfare. If 
the Courts have the final say-so on all 
legislative Acts, and if no appeal can 
lie from them to the people, then they 
are the irresponsible masters of the 
people. 

—Theodore Roosevelt. 

* * * 

'YT'OU want success, but are you will- 
ing to pay the price for it? How 
much discouragement can you stand? 
How much bruising can you take? 
How long can you stand in the face 
of obstacles? Have you the courage 
to try to do what others have failed 
to do? Have you the nerve to at¬ 
tempt things that the average man 
would never dream of tackling? Have 
you the persistence to keep on trying 
after repeated failures? Can you go 
up against skepticism, ridicule and op¬ 
position without flinching? Can you 
keep your mind steadily on the single 
object you are pursuing, resisting all 
temptations to divide your attention? 

Have you the patience to plan all the 
work you attempt; the energy to wade 
through masses of detail; the accuracy 
to overlook no point, however small, in 
planning or executing? Are you 
strong on the finish as well as quick 
at the start? Success is sold in the 
open market. You can buy it. ANY 
MAN CAN BUY IT WHO IS 
WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE. 

—Anonymous. 


* ¥• * 

/CONGRESS shall make no law re- 
^ specting an establishment of re¬ 
ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of 
the people peaceably to assemble and 
to petition the government for a re¬ 
dress of grievances. 

—First Amendment to U. S. 

Constitution. 


281 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


"PEOPLE are seduced by romance 
A because they are ignorant of real¬ 
ity. 

—G. B. Shaw. 


HP HE case is this: People once lived 
an animal life, and violated or 
killed whom they thought well to vio¬ 
late or to kill. They even ate each 
other; and public opinion approved of 
it. Thousands of years ago, as far 
back as the time of Moses, a day came 
when people realized that to violate 
or kill each other is bad. But there 
were people for whom the reign of 
force was advantageous, and these did 
not approve of the change, but as¬ 
sured themselves and others that to 
do deeds of violence and to kill people 
is not always bad, but that there are 
circumstances when it is necessary 
and even moral. 

And violence and even slaughter, 
though not so frequent or so cruel as 
before, continued—only with this dif¬ 
ference, that those who committed or 
commended such acts excused them¬ 
selves by pleading that they did it 
for the benefit of humanity. 

—Tolstoi. 


* * * 

T DO then with my friends as I do 
A with my books. I would have them 
where I can find them, but I seldom 
use them. 

—Emerson. 


\\7 E, the People of the United 
* * States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquility, provide for the 
common defense, promote the general 
welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
do ordain and establish this Constitu¬ 
tion for the United States of America. 

—Preamble to U. S. Constitution. 

* * Hs 

TX7ITHOUT free speech no search 
’’ for truth is possible; without 
free speech no discovery of truth is 
useful; without free speech progress is 
checked and the nations no longer 
march forward toward the nobler life 
which the future holds for man. Bet¬ 
ter a thousandfold abuse of free 
speech than denial of free speech. 
The abuse dies in a day, but the denial 
slays the life of the people, and en¬ 
tombs the hope of the race. 

—Charles Bradlaugh. 

* * * 

HTHE sheet-anchor of the Ship of 
State is the common school. 
Teach first and last, Americanism. 
Let no youth leave the school without 
being thoroughly grounded in the his¬ 
tory, the principles and the incalcula¬ 
ble blessing of American liberty. Let 
the boys be the trained soldiers of 
constitutional freedom, the girls the 
intelligent lovers of freemen. 

—Chauncey M. Depew. 


* * * 


* * * 


f\ PPONENTS fancy they refute us 
when they repeat their own opin¬ 
ion and pay no attention to ours. 

—Goethe. 


\X7'HAT it does show is that, not- 
’ ’ withstanding a coating of educa¬ 
tion and of Christianity, the habits of 
the Stone Age are yet so strong in 
man, that he still commits actions long 
since condemned by his reasonable 
conscience. 


A^/'HAT is a friend? I will tell you. 

It is a person with whom you 
dare to be yourself. Your soul can go 
naked with him. He seems to ask of 
you to put on nothing, only to be 
what you are. He does not want you 
to be better or worse. When you are 
with him you feel as a prisoner feels 
who has been declared innocent. You 
do not have to be on your guard. You 
can say what you think, so long as it 
is genuinely you. 


He understands those contradictions 
in your nature that lead others to mis- 


282 


—Tolstoi. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


judge you. With him you breathe 
free. You can take off your coat and 
loosen your collar. You can avow 
your little vanities and envies, and 
hates and vicious sparks, your mean¬ 
nesses and absurdities, and in opening 
them up to him they are lost, dissolved 
on the white ocean of his loyalty. He 
understands. 

You do not have to be careful. You 
can abuse him, neglect him, tolerate 
him. Best of all, you can keep still 
with him. It makes no matter. He 
likes you. He is like fire that purifies 
all you. He is like water, that cleanses 
all you say. He is like wine, that 
warms you to the bone. He under¬ 
stands, he understands. You can 
weep with him, laugh with him, sin 
with him, part with him. Through 
and underneath it all he sees, knows 
and loves you. 

A friend, I repeat, is one with whom 
you dare to be yourself. 

—Selected. 


* * * 

NE' fact stands out in bold relief 
in the history of men’s attempts 
for betterment. That is that when 
compulsion is used, only resentment 
is aroused, and the end is not 
gained. Only through moral suasion 
and appeal to men’s reason can a 
movement succeed. 

—Samuel Gompers. 

* * * 


whole force with the right spirit of 
service; encourage every sign of the 
true spirit. So display and advertise 
wares that customers shall buy with 
understanding. Treat them as guests 
when they come and when they go, 
whether or not they buy. Give them 
all that can be given fairly, on the 
principle that to him that giveth shall 
be given. Remember always that the 
recollection of quality remains long 
after the price is forgotten. Then your 
business will prosper by a natural proc¬ 
ess. 

—H. Gordon Selfridge. 

* * * 

f I 'HE men whom I have seen suc- 
A ceed best in life have always been 
cheerful and hopeful men, who went 
about their business with a smile on 
their faces, and took the changes and 
chances of this mortal life like men, 
facing rough and smooth alike as it 
came. 

—Chas. Kingsley. 

* * * 

TT is easy in the world to live after the 
world’s opinions; it is easy in soli¬ 
tude to live after our own; but the 
Great Man is he who in the midst of 
the crowd keeps with perfect sweet¬ 
ness the independence of solitude. 

—Emerson. 

* * * 


'T’HE old idea of romance: The 
country boy goes to the city, mar¬ 
ries his employer’s daughter, enslaves 
some hundred of his fellow humans, 
gets rich, and leaves a public library 
to his home town. The new idea of 
romance: To undo some of the mis¬ 
chief done by the old idea of romance. 

—Seymour Deming. 

* * * 

G ET the confidence of the public 
and you will have no difficulty in 
getting their patronage. Inspire your 

283 


r T , HE worst of errors is to believe 
that any one religion has the mo¬ 
nopoly of goodness. For every man, 
that religion is good which makes him 
gentle, upright and kind. But to govern 
mankind is a difficult task. The ideal 
is very high and the earth is very low. 
Outside the sterile province of phil¬ 
osophy, what we meet at every step is 
unreason, folly and passion. The wise 
men of antiquity succeeded in winning 
to themselves some little authority 
only by impostures, which gave them 
a hold upon the imagination, in their 
lack of physical force. 

—Ernest Renan. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


T IMAGINE from the progress that 
has been made in the past that in 
the future, we will not have recourse 
to gas alone but will employ every 
force of nature that we can. We have 
X-rays, we have light rays, we have 
heat rays. We may not be so very 
far from the development of some kind 
of lethal rays which will shrivel up or 
paralyze or poison human beings. The 
final form of human strife as I have 
regarded it, is germ welfare. I think 
it will come to that. And so far as I 
can see, there is no reason why it 
should not, if you mean to fight—pre¬ 
pare now. 

—General Swinton. 

* * * 

IF we are tempted to make war upon 
another nation, we should remember 
that we are seeking to destroy an ele¬ 
ment of our own culture, and possibly 
its most important element. As long 
as war is regarded as wicked, it will 
always have its fascination. When it 
is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease 
to be popular. 

—Oscar Wilde. 

* * * 


Tj' VERY step in woman’s movement 
is creative. There are no prece¬ 
dents whatever, not even bad ones. 
Now the invention of new ways of liv¬ 
ing is rare enough among men, but 
among women it has been almost un¬ 
known. Housekeeping and baby-rear¬ 
ing are the two most primitive arts 
in the whole world. They are almost 
the last occupations in which rule of 
thumb and old wives’ tales have re¬ 
sisted the application of scientific 
method. They are so immemoriably 
backward, that nine people out of ten 
hardly conceive the possibility of im¬ 
proving upon them. They are so back¬ 
ward that we have developed a maud¬ 
lin sentimentality about them, have 
associated family life and the joy in 
childhood with all the stupidity and 
wasted labor of the inefficient home. 


women like Mrs. Gilman insist that 
the institution of the family is not de¬ 
pendent upon keeping woman a drudge 
amidst housekeeping arrangements in¬ 
herited from the early Egyptians. 
Women have invented almost nothing 
to lighten their labor. They have made 
practically no attempt to specialize, to 
co-operate. They have been the great 
routineers. 

—Walter Lippmann. 

* * * 


TRIBUTES TO MOTHER 

TF I had all the mothers I ever saw 
A to choose from, I would have 
chosen you my Mother. 

—Carlyle. 

In after life you may have friends, but 
never again will you have the inex¬ 
pressible love and gentleness lavished 
upon you which a Mother bestows. 

—Macaulay. 

My Mother was an angel on earth. She 
has been a spirit from above watching 
over me for good. Without her the 
world feels so like a solitude. 

—John Quincy Adams. 

It is to my Mother that I owe every¬ 
thing. If I did not perish long ago in 
sin and misery, it is because of the 
long and faithful years in which she 
pleaded for me. What comparison is 
there between the honor I paid her 
and her slavery for me? 

—St. Augustine. 

You have been the best Mother—I be¬ 
lieve the best woman, in the world. I 
thank you for your indulgence to me, 
and beg forgiveness for all I have done 
ill, and for all I omitted to do well. 

—Dr. Johnson. 


The idea of making the home efficient 
will cause the average person to shud¬ 
der, as if you were uttering some blas¬ 
phemy against monogamy. “Let sci¬ 
ence into the home, where on earth 
will Cupid go to?” Almost in vain do 


What would I not give to call my dear 
Mother back to earth for a single day, 
to ask her pardon on my knees for all 
those acts by which I grieved her gen¬ 
tle spirit. 


284 


—Charles Lamb. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


All I am, all that I hope to be, I owe 
to my angel Mother. Blessings on her 
memory! I remember my Mother’s 
prayers. They have always followed 
me. They have clung to me all my 
life. 

—Abraham Lincoln. 

In memory, my Mother stands apart 
from all others, wiser, purer, doing 
more, and living better, than any other 
woman. 

—Alice Cary. 

* * * 

'V7'OUNG MEN, and old men, fight 
poverty as you v/ould fight slav¬ 
ery. Ask the old and they will tell 
you that poverty is the great, wide¬ 
spread curse. Not wealth is necessary 
to happiness, but freedom from pov¬ 
erty that grinds, poverty that worries, 
poverty that makes a man the slave 
of any man who has a dollar—THAT 
is necessary to happiness. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 

* * * 

\\T HAT nonsense it is, then, to talk 
’ * of liberty as if it were a happy- 
go-lucky breaking of chains. It is with 
emancipation that real tasks begin, and 
liberty is a searching challenge, for it 
takes away the guardianship of the 
master and the comfort of the priest. 
The iconoclasts didn’t free us. They 
threw us into the water, and now we 
have to swim. 

—Walter Lippmann. 

* * * 

HP HE old idea was that the people 
were the wards of king and priest 
—that their bodies belonged to one 
and their souls to the other. And what 
more? That the people are the source 
of political power. That was not only 
a revelation, but it was a revolution. 
It changed the ideas of people with re¬ 
gard to the source of political power. 
For the first time it made human be¬ 
ings men. What was the old idea? 
The old idea was that no political pow¬ 
er came from nor in any manner be¬ 
longed to the people. The old idea 


was that the political power came from 
the clouds; that the political power 
came in some miraculous way from 
heaven; that it came down to kings, 
and queens and robbers. That was 
the old idea. 

The nobles lived upon the labor of the 
people; the people had no rights; the 
nobles stole what they had and divided 
with the kings, and the kings pretend¬ 
ed to divide what they stole with God 
Almighty. The source, then of politi¬ 
cal power was from above. The people 
were responsible, to the nobles, the 
nobles to the king, and the people had 
no political right whatever, no more 
than the wild beasts of the forests. The 
kings were responsible to God; not the 
people. They were responsible to the 
clouds, not to the toiling millions they 
robbed and plundered. 

And our forefathers, in this Declara¬ 
tion of Independence, reversed this 
thing, and said: No, the people, they 
are the source of political power, and 
their rulers—these presidents, these 
kings—are but the agents and serv¬ 
ants of the great sublime people. For 
the first time, really, in the history of 
the world, the king was made to get 
off the throne, and the people were 
royally seated thereon. The people 
became the sovereigns, and the old 
sovereigns became the servants and 
the agents of the people. 

It is hard for you and me to imagine 
even the immense results of the change. 
It is hard for you and me, at this day, 
to understand how thoroughly it had 
been ingrained in the brain of almost 
every man, that the king had some 
wonderful right over him; that in some 
strange way the king owned him; that 
in some miraculous manner he be¬ 
longed, body and soul, to somebody 
with epaulettes on his shoulders and 
a tinsel crown upon his brainless head. 

—Robert G. Ingersoll. 

* * * 

Hr 1 HE statesmen of the world have 
no vision. It is the people of the 
world who see. No great vision has 
ever come to mankind that was not 
wrought from the suffering of man¬ 
kind. 


285 


—Woodrow Wilson. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


A FEW aeroplanes could visit New 
1 York as the central point of terri¬ 
tory 100 miles square every 8 days and 
drop enough gas to keep the entire 
area inundated—200 tons of phosgene 
gas could be laid every 8 days and 
would be enough to kill every inhabi¬ 
tant. 

—Brigadier General Mitchell, of the 
U. S. Army. 

* * * 

nr HERE was a curious, exalted state 
of mind about the early days of 
the war. All of us who dodged about, 
immune from its hardship and dangers, 
felt that mood, but the men at the 
front—wallowing in filth and misery, 
hardened themselves against instant 
death—must have indeed felt in a 
much different mood. They had been 
taught to go on; but deep down lay a 
rebellion against the whole principle 
of the thing. 

—Irwin. 

* * * 

MEN fail for various reasons, little 
and big. Most men fail because 
they are lazy. To be lazy means—to 
be late, to be slovenly, to be a poor 
economist of time, to shirk responsi¬ 
bility. 

It means to say of anything that is 
clamoring to be done: “No, I'm not 
going to do that, because it isn’t my 
work.” Laziness is at the back of most 
of the lesser reasons for failure. The 
minor causes are derivatives from that 
one great major cause. It is so easy 
to dream in the sun and let the world 
go by; to dawdle and procrastinate, till 
one wakes up—too late. Late and lazy, 
are, in fact first cousins. If you are 
late, you waste other people’s time as 
well as your own. 

Lazy people have all the time there is, 
and yet they haven’t time to be polite. 
They disdain the forms of ceremony 
that sweeten life. They are grouchy, 
surely, gruff. It pains them to be pleas¬ 
ant, to say thanks and smile. To be 
deferential is not to be servile. It is 
merely to be decently respectful. The 
biggest men are the most unassuming 
and most unpresuming. It is the in¬ 


significant people who fluff themselves 
up with a false and foolish pride and 
are forever orating from the flimsy and 
slippery platform of their own touchy 
dignity. 

Failure is generally elective. It rests 
with the man himself whether he cares 
enough for success to pay the price. 

—Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

* * * 

' I' HE rivalries that begin in com- 
merce end on battlefields. The 
history of war is green with interna¬ 
tional jealousies. Whatever the diplo* 
matic excuse, every great conflict in 
modern times had its origin in some 
question of property rights. 

—Advertisement National Hughes Al¬ 
liance, Oct. 11, 1916. 

* * * 

1VAEN fight shy of you if you tell a 
certain kind of lie persistently, 
and if you cheat at cards. But I’ve 
been all my life lying. It was my pro¬ 
fession to lie. I was a diplomatist, you 
know. Nobody thinks a bit the worse 
of me. In fact, I’ve got a jewel case 
full of ribbons and stars and things 
given me as tokens of respect for my 
skill as a liar. 

—Lord Daintree, Ex-Diplomat. 

* * * 

A N expert has said that a dozen 
^ Lewisite air bombs of the great¬ 
est size in use during 1918, might with 
a favorable wind have eliminated the 
population of Berlin. The armistice 
came; but as research went on, we 
have more than a hint of gas beyond 
Lewisite. A mere capsule of this gas 
in small grenades can generate square 
rods and even acres of death in the 
absolute. 

—Irwin. 

* * * 

T)EOPLE talk about agitators but the 
A only real agitator is injustice; and 
the only way is to correct the injustice 
and allay the agitation. 

—Sir Charles Napier. 


286 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


'T' 1 HE right of citizens of the United 
States to vote, shall not be denied 
or abridged by the United States or 
by any state on account of sex. 

—XIX Amendment to U. S. Consti¬ 
tution. 

* * * 

TN general 37c of the consumer’s dol- 
lar represents the cost of produc¬ 
ing the article and the costs of all ma¬ 
terials that went into it. The remain¬ 
ing 63c of the dollar represents the 
middlemen’s fee for bringing the arti¬ 
cle to the ultimate consumer. 

—Sydney Anderson. 

* * * 

HP HE rights of citizens of the United 
States to vote shall not be denied 
or abridged by the United States or 
by any State, on account of race, color, 
or previous condition of servitude. 

—Article XV, U. S. Constitution. 

* * * 

'jV/f ORAL science, in revealing the 
right use of my gun, inevitably 
reveals the wrong use also; and since 
the wrong use will often serve my sel¬ 
fish purpose better than the right, my 
neighbors run a new risk of being shot 
at and plundered. A bad man armed 
with moral science is another name for 
the Devil. If Mephistopheles had been 
examined in this subject by a modern 
university, he would have carried off 
all the prizes. At that point moral sci¬ 
ence and natural science are in the 
same boat. 

—L. P. Jacks. 

* * * 

HP HE making of this world a better 
place to live in is the task of edu¬ 
cation. To that end all forces must 
co-operate, each one bringing its spe¬ 
cific contribution to the attainment of 
human welfare. A democratic govern¬ 
ment, to be successful, must rely on 
private initiative, on individuals, on re¬ 
ligious groups to supplement what it 
is doing. But to suppress the endeav¬ 


ors of all non-state groups, in the sup¬ 
posed interests of a higher loyalty, will 
always be regarded by right-thinking 
men as an act of the grossest tyranny, 
the final result of which can be noth¬ 
ing short of the destruction of the so¬ 
cial organism itself. 

—John H. Ryan. 

* * * 

T AM saying that in my judgment 
A American women generally are not 
interested in public affairs, national or 
local, in the concrete or in the abstract. 
Having made this charge, I will make 
another. The American woman, as I 
meet her, is more concerned with in¬ 
forming herself along almost any line 
rather than politics and public affairs. 
And when I say this, I have in mind 
my friends, my associates, my acquain¬ 
tances, myself, my dressmaker, my 
milliner, my cook, my younger rela¬ 
tives, and the daughters of my friends. 

—George Madden Martin. 

* * * 

O, the life which the writer paints, 
or suggests, is divested of all the 
nobler pleasures; empty of intellectual 
interest; devoid of social diversion; 
artless, heartless, furtive, narrow, 
bleak, mournful, mean, and inhuman. 
Impossible to speak or read of it jo¬ 
cosely. Jest and irony die in their pre¬ 
conception. This is the American! 
To this he has fallen! We look in the 
magic glass, and the glass is truly 
magic with the grace and truth of 
genius, and we see our American 
brother’s face. It is a very sad face, 
but not sad with thought; not fur¬ 
rowed by dark experience; not weary 
with having lived. No, the face, as it 
appears on this canvas, wears the 
mournful, baffled expression of a soul 
which does not know how to live, and 
has not lived. 

—Langdon Mitchell. 

* * * 

r p HE divorce between thought and 
will is an unhappy feature of our 
time. To what fatal consequences it 
has led! We need only refer to our 


287 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


political leaders and to the various 
orders of social life; they are deeply 
infected with this pernicious dualism. 
Many of them are assuredly powerful 
enough in respect of their mental fac¬ 
ulties, and have an abundance of ideas; 
but they lack a sound orientation and 
the fine thoughts which science applies 
to the life of individuals and of peo¬ 
ples. 

—Francisco Ferrer. 

* * * 

HP HE Americans are not free from 
all obligations towards Europe. 
Let them apply their national enthus¬ 
iasm to international life. As they call 
upon children to regenerate parents, so 
let them act as good sons to the coun¬ 
tries from which they sprang, and let 
the renovation of Europe be their 
work! All their initiative, all their good 
will and all their religious zeal com¬ 
bined will not be too much to overcome 
our egotism and routine. Let them be 
worthy of their ancestors and of ours. 
Let it be their glory to become guides 
and not masters. 

—Destournelles De Constant. 

* * * 

'T' HE appalling and wanton sacrifice 
of life which are incident to the 
evolution of machinery and the divi¬ 
sion of labor seem to demand at times 
their elimination. In weariness we are 
urged to retrace our steps and go back 
to craftsmanship and the Guilds. But 
it is idle to talk about going back or 
eliminating institutionalized features 
of society. We cannot go back, we 
have not the ability to discard this or 
that part of our environment except as 
we make it over. 

—Helen Marot. 

* * * 

TT is the continual and stupendous 
dead pressure of this unhuman up¬ 
on the living human under which the 
modern world is groaning. Not mere¬ 
ly the subject races, but you who live 
under the delusion that you are free, 
are every day sacrificing your freedom 
and humanity to this fetich of nation¬ 


alism, living in the dense poisonous 
atmosphere of world-wide suspicion 
and greed and panic. 

—Rabindranath Tagore. 

* * * 

TN every conscious existence there 
comes a moment when the living 
being is no longer determined but be¬ 
gins to determine himself; when he 
takes over the responsibility from the 
surrounding powers, in order to shoul¬ 
der it for himself; when he no longer 
accepts the forces that guide him, but 
creates them; when he no longer re¬ 
ceives but freely chooses the values, 
ideals, aims and authorities whose va¬ 
lidity he will admit; when he begets 
out of his own being the relations with 
the divine which he means to serve. 

—Walter Rathenau. 

* * * 

C O it goest with this question of or- 
^ der and morality among nations. 
We need the law; we need also per¬ 
sonal ethics—international morality. 
By the forces of light which we have 
—churches, schools, all associations of 
men for spiritual and intellectual ends 
—we need to strengthen the belief that 
a state, including your own, can do 
wrong, that between nations there is 
such a thing as live and let live, that 
humanity is greater than mere race. 

This does not mean abolishing the sen¬ 
timent of patriotism. There are two 
conceptions of that noble old emotion. 
One ends at the mental condition of 
Germany in 1914—the state for the 
state’s sake, your hand ever on your 
sword to protect her honor and her 
interests, though every person in the 
state be rendered less happy by the 
process. The other regards the nation 
as an agency for the greatest good of 
the greatest number. He who follows 
this conception takes his pride not in 
his nation’s hollow victories of arms 
but in her achievements of order, com¬ 
mon prosperity, art, science, industry. 
The one is the old-fashioned patriot¬ 
ism, grown in the twentieth century 
to a world-menace; the other is the 
patriotism of the future. 

—Will Irwin. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


T KNOW not if I deserve that a lau- 
A rel-wreath should one day be laid 
on my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have 
loved it, has always been to me but a 
divine plaything. I have never at¬ 
tached any great value to poetical 
fame; and I trouble myself very little 
whether people praise my verses or 
blame them. But lay on my coffin a 
sword; for I was a brave soldier in 
the Liberation War of humanity. 

—Heinrich Heine. 

* * * 

HP HE Art of life is that high art 
which children name Behaviour, 
and as art is the end of science, so 
beautiful behaviour is the end of hope. 
If it were not so, Nobel would not 
have wasted his money on Idealism, 
nor I my labour. Here is the highest 
and most difficult art in the world, and 
yet the one in which each is called to 
be an artist; the art which any man, in 
any walk of life, may excel in, but in 
which not many may achieve perfec¬ 
tion. Not even K’ung, the Master, 
achieved perfection, if he is now wor¬ 
shipped alongside of Heaven. Not even 
the Buddha achieved perfection, if the 
Gods in Heaven now worship him. 

—Allen Upward. 

* * * 

lV/r ANY of the men were so weak- 
ened by the want and hardship of 
the winter that they were no longer in 
condition for effective labor. Some of 
the bosses who were in need of added 
hands were obliged to turn men away 
because of physical incapacity. One in¬ 
stance of this I shall not soon forget. 

It was when I overheard early one 
morning, at a factory gate, an inter¬ 
view between a would-be laborer and 
the boss. I knew the applicant for a 
Russian Jew, who had at home an old 
mother and a wife and two young chil¬ 
dren to support. He had had intermit¬ 
tent employment throughout the win¬ 
ter in a sweater’s den, barely enough 
to keep them all alive, and, after the 
hardships of the cold season, he was 
again in desperate straits for work. 

The boss had all but agreed to take 
him on for some sort of unskilled la¬ 


bor, when, struck by the cadaverous 
look of the man, he told him to bare his 
arm. Up went the sleeve of his coat and 
his ragged flannel shirt, exposing a 
naked arm with the muscles nearly 
gone, and the blue-white transparent 
skin stretched over sinews and the out¬ 
line of the bones. 

Pitiful beyond words were his efforts 
to give a semblance of strength to the 
biceps which rose faintly to the up¬ 
ward movement of the forearm. But 
the boss sent him off with an oath and 
and a contemptuous laugh, and I 
watched the fellow as he turned down 
the street, facing the fact of his starv¬ 
ing family with a despair at his heart 
which only mortal man can feel and no 
mortal tongue can speak. 

—Walter S. Wyckoff. 

* * * 

TT is not because of his toil that I la- 
ment for the poor: we must all toil, 
or steal (howsoever we name our steal¬ 
ing). which is worse; no faithful work¬ 
man finds his task a pastime. The 
poor is hungry and athirst; but for him 
also there is food and drink: he is 
heavy-laden and weary; but for him 
also the Heavens send sleep, and the 
deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear 
dewy haven of rest envelops him, and 
fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted 
dreams. 

But what I do mourn over is, that the 
lamp of his should go out; that no ray 
of heavenly, or even of earthly, knowl¬ 
edge should visit him; but only, in the 
haggard darkness, like two spectres, 
Fear and Indignation bear him com¬ 
pany. 

Alas, while the body stands so broad 
and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, 
dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! 
Alas, was this too a Breath of God; 
bestowed in heaven, but on earth never 
to be unfolded! That there should one 
man die ignorant who had capacity for 
Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were 
it to happen more than twenty times 
in the minute, as by some computa¬ 
tions it does. 

The miserable fraction of Science 
which our united Mankind, in a wide 
universe of Nescience, has acquired, 


289 


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why is not this, with all diligence, im¬ 
parted to all? 

—Thomas Carlyle. 

* * * 

MOW, after all is said and done, 
there is really no reason for dis¬ 
cussing the undesirability of child em¬ 
ployment. Let us leave the scientific 
aspect of it entirely aside; there is no 
reason for discussing it anyhow, be¬ 
cause no one believes in it. The em¬ 
ployer does not believe in it because 
he does not send his own children to 
work in the mine or workshop; the 
laborer does not believe in child labor 
because every child that is sent into 
the mill or workshop to work for its 
living is sent there because of eco¬ 
nomic expediency on the part of the 
adult; it is the grown-up that sends 
the child into the workshop because 
of his fancied need. 

—Dr. Albert Freiberg. 

♦ * * 

f I ^HE average Western American of 
Lincoln’s generation was funda¬ 
mentally a man who subordinated his 
intelligence to certain dominant prac¬ 
tical interest and purposes. He was 
far from being a stupid or slow witted 
man. On the contrary, his wits had 
been sharpened by the traffic of Ameri¬ 
can politics and business, and his mind 
was shrewd, flexible, and alert. But 
he was wholly incapable either of dis¬ 
interested or of concentrated intellec¬ 
tual exertion. His energies were bent 
in the conquest of certain stubborn ex¬ 
ternal forces, and he used his intelli¬ 
gence almost exclusively to this end. 
The struggles, the hardships, and the 
necessary self-denial of pioneer life 
constituted an admirable training of 
the will. It developed a body of men 
with great resolution of purpose and 
with great ingenuity and fertility in 
adapting their insufficient means to the 
realization of their important business 
affairs. But their almost exclusive pre¬ 
occupation with practical tasks and 
their failure to grant their intelligence 
any room for independent exercise bent 
them into exceedingly warped and one¬ 
sided human beings. 

—Herbert Croly. 


'VT O young man believes he shall ever 
die. It was a saying of my broth¬ 
er’s and a fine one. There is a feeling 
of Eternity in youth which makes us 
amends for everything. To be young 
is to be as one of the immortals. One- 
half of time indeed is spent—the other 
half remains in store for us, with all its. 
countless treasures, for there is no line 
drawn, and we see no limit to our 
hopes and wishes. 

—William Hazlitt. 


* * * 


r I ''HE social creeds of the Christian 
churches will remain the expres¬ 
sions of vague aspirations until they 
are supplemented by the knowledge 
essential to their concrete definition. 
Men and women who profess allegiance 
to the Great Commandments of Jesus 
have come to realize that the Kingdom 
of God on Earth, the Brotherhood of 
Man, cannot be built by fiat or verbal 
proclamation. The building of a 
worthy civilization is as definitely an 
engineering enterprise as the building 
of the Panama Canal. It demands a 
scientific procedure and a patient devo¬ 
tion as thorough-going as that which 
during the past two hundred years has 
gone into the development of the steam 
engine, the aeroplane, or high-tension 
electric transmission. The theory of 
nationalization, like the theory of col¬ 
lective bargaining and the traditional 
theory of progress by free competition, 
must each be tested, as the existing 
social and industrial order must be 
tested, in the light of painfully ascer¬ 
tained facts, and in terms of their ef¬ 
fect upon the individual personality. 

—Robert W. Bruere. 

* * * 

A ND though all the winds of doc- 
trine were let loose to play upon 
the earth, so Truth be in the field, we 
do injuriously by licensing and prohib¬ 
iting to misdoubt her strength. Let 
her and Falsehood grapple; who ever 
knew Truth put to the worse, in a free 
and open encounter? 

—Milton’s Areopagitica. 


290 


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\ ND we can with certitude declare 
that the First Amendment forbids 
the punishment of words merely for 
their injurious tendencies. The history 
of the Amendment and the political 
function of free speech corroborate 
each other and make this conclusion 
plain. 

—Z. Chaffee. 

* * * 

■\fITAL as is the necessity in time 
~ of war not to hamper acts of the 
executive in the defense of the nation 
and in the prosecution of the war, of 
equal and perhaps greater importance, 

is the preservation of constitutional 

rights. 

—Judge Mayer. 

He H 4 % 

TF there be any among us who wish 
to dissolve this union, or to change 
its republican form, let them stand un¬ 
disturbed, as monuments of the safety 
with which error of opinion may be 
tolerated where reason is left free to 
combat it. I know indeed that some 
honest men have feared that a republi¬ 
can government cannot be strong; that 
this government is not strong enough. 
But would the honest patriot, in the 
full tide of successful experiment, 
abandon a government which has so 
far kept us free and firm on the the¬ 
oretic and visionary fear that this gov¬ 
ernment, the world’s best hope, may, 
by possibility, want energy to preserve 
itself? I trust not. I believe this, on 
the contrary, the strongest government 
on earth. 

—Jefferson’s First Inaugural. 


'T'HE “Liberty” is likely to survive 
longer than anything else that I 
have written, because it is a kind of 
philosophic text-book of a single truth, 
which the changes progressively taking 
place in modern society tend to bring 
out into ever stronger relief: the im¬ 
portance, to man and society, of a large 
variety in types of character, and of 
giving full freedom to human nature 
to expand itself in innumerable and 
conflicting directions. 

—John Stuart Mill, Autobiography. 


T'\EMOCRACY is not a water-tight 
compartment. It is a great adven¬ 
ture, and in order to prepare people for 
that adventure we have to teach them 
to think for themselves on the prob¬ 
lems they will have to face when they 
grow up. It is not simply teaching 
them the ideals of the day,—we must 
train them to make the ideals of to¬ 
morrow. 

—Z. Chaffee. 

* * * 

\\^E are all travelers in what John 
’ ’ Bunyan calls the wilderness of 
this world—all, too, travelers with a 
donkey; and the best that we find in 
our travels is an honest friend. He is 
a fortunate voyager who finds many. 
We travel indeed to find them. They 
are the end and reward of life. 

—Robert Louis Stevenson. 

* * * 

f I ''O be honest to be kind—to earn a 
little and to spend a little less, to 
make upon the whole a family happier 
for his presence, to renounce when that 
shall be necessary and not be embit¬ 
tered, to keep a few friends, but these 
without capitulation—above all, on the 
same grim conditions, to keep friends 
with himself—here is a task for all that 
a man has of fortitude and delicacy. 

—Robert Louis Stevenson. 

* * * 

'T'HROUGH the ages one increasing 
purpose runs. And the thoughts of 
men are widened with the process of 
the suns. 

—Tennyson. 

* * * 

T TEACH you the superman! Man 
is something that shall be sur¬ 
passed. What have ye done to sur¬ 
pass him? All beings that have come 
into the world heretofore have created 
something beyond themselves. Are ye 
going back to the animal or ahead to 
the superman? What to man is the 
ape? A joke or a sore shame. Man 
shall be the same to the superman—a 


291 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


joke or a sore shame. Ye have made 
your way from worm to man, but much 
within you is still worm. Once ye were 
apes, but even now man is but an ape 
greater than any ape. . . Behold, I 
teach you the superman! 

—Nietzsche. 

* * * 


'V\7'E should not let ourselves be 
* ’ burnt for our opinions themselves, 
of which we can never be quite sure, 
but we may perhaps do so for the right 
to hold and change them. 

—Nietzsche. 

* * * 


"pURGE out of every heart the lurk- 
A ing grudge. Give us grace and 
strength to forbear and to persevere. 
Offenders, give us the grace to accept 
and to forgive offenders. Forgetful 
ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the 
forgetfulness of others. Give us cour¬ 
age and gaiety and the quiet mind. 
Spare to us our friends, soften to us 
our enemies . . . Bless us, if it may be, 
in all our innocent endeavors. If it 
may not, give us the strength to en¬ 
counter that which is to come, that we 
be brave in peril, constant in tribula¬ 
tion, temperate in wrath, and in all 
changes of fortune, and down to the 
gates of death, loyal and loving one to 
another. 

—Robert Louis Stevenson. 

* * * 

JUSTICE shines in smoke-grimed 
** houses and holds in regard to the 
life that is righteous; she leaves with 
averted eyes the gold-bespangled pal¬ 
ace which is unclean, and goes to the 
abode that is holy. 

—Aeschylus. 


P VERYTHING that everybody in 
the world wants for the coming 
year may be simmered down to one 
thing—Happiness. Everybody wants 
to be Happy. Hence these Fourteen 
Points. They may not cover the whole 
case, but they are worth thinking 
about: 

1. Keep Normal. Good old Mother 
Nature has so arranged it that every 
organism, from kittens to kings, is 
happy if it is living in accordance with 
Nature’s laws. Every living creature 
normally secretes joy. Suffering only 
comes when someone, ourselves or 
somebody else, breaks these laws. 

2. Don’t Worry. If you can help 
it, help it. If you cannot help it, why 
worry? 

3. Go to Work. Find some kind 
of work for which people are willing 
to pay you money. That does not 
mean that you are a miser; it means 
that you are doing something that 
other people think is of real value. The 
surest road to joy is to serve some¬ 
body. 


TVHEREFORE, O judges, be of 
~ ’ good cheer about death, and know 
this is a truth—that no evil can happen 
to a good man, either in life or after 
death. He and his are not neglected 
by the gods. The hour of departure 
has arrived, and we go our ways—I to 
die, you to live. Which is better, God 
only knows. 

—Socrates. 


CO long as we love, we serve; so long 
^ as we are loved by others I would 
almost say we are indispensable; and 
no man is useless while he has a friend. 


-Robert Louis Stevenson. 


4. Resolve to be Happy. Lincoln 
said that he had discovered that most 
people are about as happy as they had 
made up their minds to be. 

5. Beware of Frauds. The greatest 
of these is alcohol, or any other kind 
of drug that gives you artificial happi¬ 
ness. The Bottomless Pit is full of 
poor suckers who are deceived by this 
kind of bait. 

6. Look for Happiness in Yourself. 
That is where it comes from. Unless 
you have inner resources of happiness 
no one else can supply you. 

7. Be Careful of Love. Get all you 
can, and keep all you get. The love of 
no human creature is to be despised. 
Nor of dogs, either. 


292 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


8. Adjust yourself. A great deal of 
unhappiness comes because we do not 
fit. If you do not fit where you are, 
go somewhere else. Transportation is 
cheap. If you cannot go, and cannot 
change your circumstances, change 
yourself. And, after all, it is easier to 
change oneself than to change the 
world. 

9. Do not Look for Safety. Look for 
Adventure. The safest people in the 
world are in jail, and they are not par¬ 
ticularly happy. 

10. Try to Make Others Happy. You 
cannot expect to reap happiness unless 
you plant it. No one ever heard of a 
person who was wretched or tragic, or 
miserable, yet constantly engaged in 
trying to make other people happy. 

11. Keep the Rules of the Game. You 
cannot have fun in any game unless 
you play it according to the rules. You 
can have no fun at baseball if you in¬ 
sist on running to third base before 
you do to first. Nobody will play with 
you. It is so in the Game of Life. 

12. Do Not Postpone Happiness. If 
you cannot be happy now, there is not 
much chance tomorrow. The text of 
R. L. Stevenson cannot be too often 
repeated: The true happiness of man¬ 
kind is not to arrive, but to travel. 

13. Adjust Yourself to Your Instincts. 
Especially that instinct which is the 
latest product of evolution, the instinct 
we call Conscience. Do right. If there 
ever was any one blissfully happy all 
his life in doing what he knew to be 
wrong, I never heard of him. 

14. Use God. It matters not so much 
what the name of your God is, or the 
form you use in worshipping Him. 
And it does you no good to believe in 
God unless you use Him. If you do 
not know how to use God, you might 
learn. Other people have learned. 

—Dr. Frank Crane. 

(By courteous permission of “Current 
Opinion.”) 

* * * 

'T’HE greatness of man lies in this: 

that he is a bridge and not a goal. 
The thing that can be loved in man is 
this: that he is a transition and an 


exit. . . I love those who do not seek 
beyond the stars for reasons to perish 
and be sacrificed, but who sacrifice 
themselves that earth may one day 
bring forth the superman. 

—Nietzsche. 

* * * 

A/f Y counsel is that we hold fast ever 
1 to the heavenly way and follow 
justice and virtue. Thus we shall live 
dear to one another and to the gods, 
both while remaining here, and when, 
like conquerors in the games, we go to 
receive our reward. 

—Plato. 

♦ Hs * 

"DELOVED Pan, and all ye other 
gods who haunt this place, give me 
beauty in the inward soul; and may the 
outward and inward man be at one. 
May I reckon the wise to be the weal¬ 
thy, and may I have such a quantity of 
gold as none but the temperate can 
carry. 

—Socrates. 

* * * 

TX7HAT does not kill me, strength- 
* ’ ens me. 

—Nietzsche. 

* * * 

"LJELP thyself; then everyone else 
helps thee. 

—Nietzsche. 

* * * 

r I ''HE center of our studies, the goal 
A of our thoughts, the point to which 
all paths lead and the point from which 
all paths start again, is to be found in 
Rome and her abiding power. 

—Freeman. 

* * * 

T> OME was the whole world, and all 
^ the world was Rome. 

—Spencer. 


293 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


r I 'HERE are briars in the road? 

A Then turn aside from them, but do 
not add, Why were such things made? 
Thou will be ridiculed by a man who 
is acquainted with nature, as thou 
wouldst be by a carpenter or shoe¬ 
maker if thou didst complain that there 
were shavings and cuttings in his shop. 

—Marcus Aurelius. 

* * * 


CO I asked myself: How can there 
^ be any body and soul after all? 
Maybe there’s only one. . . . And so I 
said to my body: I will no longer call 
you body: there must be another name 
for you! And so I said to my soul: 
I will no. longer call you soul: there 
must be another name for you. 

—Traubel. 

* * * 


T^HE philosopher has to be the bad 
conscience of his age. 


—Nietzsche. 


HPHE old order changeth, yielding 
place to new. And God fulfills 
Himself in many ways, lest one good 
custom should corrupt the world. 


HPHE settlement of the Teutonic 
A tribes was not merely the introduc¬ 
tion of a new set of ideas and institu¬ 
tions. ... it was also the introduction 
of fresh blood and youthful mind—the 
muscle and brain which in the future 
were to do the larger share of the 
world’s work. 

—George Burton Adams. 


—Tennyson. 


A T every moment some one country, 
■^■more than any other, represents the 
future and the welfare of mankind. 

—Emerson. 


'\A7'E consider bibles and religions 
’ ’ divine—I do not say they are not 
divine, 

I say they have all grown out of you, 

and may grow out of you still, 
It is not they who give the life, 

it is you who give the life. . . . 

—Whitman. 


p'VERYTHING harmonizes with me 
which is harmonious to thee, O 
Universe! No thing is too early or too 
late which is in due time for thee! 
Everything is fruit to me which the 
seasons bring, O Nature! From thee 
are all things; in thee are all things; 
to thee all things return. The poet 
says, Dear city of Cecrops; and shall 
not I say, Dear city of Zeus? 

—Marcus Aurelius. 


TX^HAT is known I strip away, I 
* ’ launch all men and women for¬ 
ward with me into the Unknown. 

—Whitman. 


HPHE best way to avenge thyself is 
not to become like the wrongdoer. 

—Marcus Aurelius. 

* * * 

BEHOLD, the body includes and is 
the meaning, the main concern, and 
includes, and is the soul: Whoever you 
are, how superb and how divine is your 
body, or any part of it! 

—Whitman. 


"PROM a child I was fond of reading, 
and all the little money that came 
into my hands was ever laid out in 
books. Pleased with the Pilgrim’s 
Progress, my first collection was of 
John Bunyan’s works in separate little 
volumes. I afterward sold them to 
enable me to buy R. Burton’s Histori¬ 
cal Collections; they were small chap¬ 
men’s books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in 
all. My father’s little library consisted 
chiefly of books in polemic divinity, 


294 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


most of which I read, and have since 
often regretted that, at a time when I 
had such a thirst for knowledge, more 
proper books had not fallen in my way, 
since it was now resolved I should not 
be a clergyman. Plutarch’s Lives 
there was, in which I read abundantly, 
and I still think that time spent to 
great advantage. 

There was also a book of De Foe’s 
called an Essay on Projects, and an¬ 
other of Dr. Mather’s, called Essays to 
Do Good, which perhaps gave me a 
turn of thinking that had an influence 
on some of the principal future events 
of my life. 

—Benjamin Franklin. 

* * * 

'^X^HEN thou wishest to delight thy- 
* * self, think of the virtues of those 
who live with thee. 


—Marcus Aurelius. 

* * * 

O man is a democrat, a true demo- 
crat, who forgets that he is inter¬ 
ested in the welfare of the race. Who 
asks only, what is best for America, 
instead of what is best for man—the 
whole of man. Is a man a citizen of 
Camden, only? No—no indeed. And 
if not of Camden, not of New Jersey, 
nor even of America. No—no—no— 
no: a man is no democrat if he takes 
the narrow in preference to the broad 
view. He may talk democracy, of the 
people, but it’s all a lie—all false— 
nothing but nuts crackling under a 
pot. 

—Whitman. 


'^'OTHING can take the place of 
love. Nothing in marriage and 
nothing outside of marriage. If love 
is dead within marriage that moment 
the marriage ceases. And if love come 
to life outside marriage that moment 
the marriage begins. This is not a 
question as if between free love and 
some other kind of love. It’s a ques¬ 
tion as if between loving and not lov¬ 
ing. 


r I ’'O say all in a word, everything 
A which belongs to the body is a 
stream and all that belongs to the soul 
is a dream and a vapor; life is a war¬ 
fare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after 
fame is oblivion. What then is there 
about which we ought seriously to em¬ 
ploy ourselves? This one thing—just 
thoughts and social acts, words that do 
not lie, and temper which accepts 
gladly all that happens. 

—Marcus Aurelius. 

* * * 


TN that narrow sense I am no Ameri- 
A can—count me out. Restrict noth¬ 
ing—keep everything open: to Italy, 
to China, to anybody. I love America, 
I believe in America, because her belly 
can hold and digest all—anarchist, so¬ 
cialist, peacemakers, fighters, disturb¬ 
ers or degenerates of whatever sort— 
hold and digest all. If I felt that 
America could not do this I would be 
indifferent as betjween our institutions 
and any others. America is not all in 
all—the sum total: she is only to con¬ 
tribute her contribution to the big 
scheme. 

—Whitman. 


* * * 


A BOUT this time I met with an odd 
volume of the “Spectator.” It was 
the third. I had never before seen 
any of them. I bought it, read it over 
and over and was very much delighted 
with it. I thought the writing excel¬ 
lent, and wished, if possible, to imi¬ 
tate it. With this view I took some 
of the papers, and, making short hints 
of the sentiment in each sentence, laid 
them by a few days, and then, with¬ 
out looking at the book, tried to com¬ 
plete the papers again, by expressing 
each hinted sentiment at length, and 
as fully as it had been expressed be¬ 
fore, in any suitable words that should 
come to hand. 


Then I compared my “Spectator” 
with the original, discovered some of 
my faults, and corrected them. But I 
found I wanted a stock of words, or a 
readiness in recollecting and using 
them, which I thought I should have 
acquired before that time if I had gone 
on making verses; since the continual 

295 


—Traubel. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


occasion for words of the same import, 
but of different length, to suit the 
measure, or of different sound for the 
rhyme, would have laid me under a 
constant necessity of searching for 
variety, and also have tended to fix 
that variety in my mind, and make me 
master of it. 

Therefore I took some of the tales 
and turned them into verse; and, after 
a time, when I had pretty well forgot¬ 
ten the prose, turned them back again. 
I also sometimes jumbled my collec¬ 
tions of hints into confusion, and after 
some weeks endeavored to reduce them 
into the best order, before I began to 
form the full sentences and complete 
the paper. This was to teach me 
method in the arrangement of 
thoughts. By comparing my work 
afterward with the original I discov¬ 
ered many faults and amended them; 
but I sometimes had the pleasure of 
fancying that, in certain particulars of 
small import, I had been lucky enough 
to improve the method or the language, 
and this encouraged me to think I 
might possibly in time come to be a 
tolerable English writer, of which I 
was extremely ambitious. 

My time for these exercises and for 
reading was at night, after work or be¬ 
fore it began in the morning, or on 
Sundays, when I contrived to be in 
the printing house alone, evading as 
much as I could the common atten¬ 
dance on public worship which my 
father used to exact of me when I was 
under his care, and which indeed I still 
thought a duty, though I could not, as 
it seemed to me, afford time to prac¬ 
tise it. . . . 

—Benjamin Franklin. 

* * * 

“DE courteous to all, but intimate 
with few; and let those few be well 
tried before you give them your confi¬ 
dence. True friendship is a plant of 
slow growth, and must undergo and 
withstand the shocks of adversity be¬ 
fore it is entitled to the appellation. 
Let your heart feel for the afflictions 
and distresses of every one, and esti¬ 
mation of the widow’s mite, but, that it 
is not everyone who asketh, that de- 
serveth charity; all, however, are wor¬ 
thy of the inquiry, or the deserving 
may suffer. 


Do not conceive that fine clothes 
make fine men, any more than fine 
feathers make fine birds. A plain, gen¬ 
teel dress is more admired, and obtains 
more credit, than lace and embroidery, 
in the eyes of the judicious and sensi¬ 
ble. The last thing, which I shall men¬ 
tion, is first in importance; and that is 
to avoid gaming. This is a vice, which 
is productive of every possible evil; 
equally injurious to the morals and 
health of its votaries. It is the child 
of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and 
the father of mischief. It has been the 
ruin of many worthy families, the loss 
of many a man’s honor, and the cause 
of suicide. 

To all those who enter the lists, it is 
equally fascinating. The successful 
gamester pushes his good fortune, till 
it is overtaken by a reverse. The los- 
ing gamester, in hopes of retrieving 
past misfortunes, goes on from bad to 
worse, till grown desperate he pushes 
at everything and loses his all. In a 
word, few gain by this abominable 
practice, while thousands are injured. 

—George Washington. 

* * * 

TJUT isn’t our first duty to take care 
of ourselves—our America? Yes— 
that’s right. Take care of your family, 
your state, your nation—that’s right 
from a certain standpoint: some people 
seem ordained to care for one man, for 
a dozen men, for a single nation: and 
some people—of whom I hope I am 
one—to care for them all. All sounds 
so damned much better than one— 
don’t you think? The whole business 
done at once instead of a little patch 
of it here and there! I don’t want the 
brotherhood of the world to be so long 
a-coming. I can wait till it comes— 
it is sure to come—but if I can hurry 
it by a day or so I am going to do so. 

—Whitman. 

* * * 

A ND so I do not doubt that the cor- 
^ ruption in a man with love is pur¬ 
er than the saintliness in a man with¬ 
out love. . . . And that you, no matter 
who you are, should go with love to 
the ends of love and not be afraid. 

—Traubel. 


296 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


C UPPOSE that man curse thee, or 
^ kill thee ... if a man stand by a 
pure spring and curse it, the spring 
does not cease to send up wholesome 
water. 

—Marcus Aurelius. 

* * * 


mode of establishing such an equilib¬ 
rium, that by constituting the repre¬ 
sentation of each an independent 
branch of the legislature, and an inde¬ 
pendent executive authority, such as 
that in our government, to be a third 
branch and a mediator or an arbitrator 
between them. 


A MIDST all their exultations, Amer- 
1 icans and Frenchmen should re¬ 
member that the perfectibility of man 
is only human and terrestrial perfecti¬ 
bility. Cold will still freeze, and fire 
will never cease to burn; disease and 
vice will continue to disorder, and 
death to terrify mankind. Emulation 
next to self-preservation will forever 
be the great spring of human actions, 
and the balance of a well-ordered gov¬ 
ernment will alone be able to prevent 
that emulation from degenerating in¬ 
to dangerous ambition, irregular rival¬ 
ries, destructive factions, wasting sedi¬ 
tions, and bloody civil wars. 


The great question will forever re¬ 
main, who shall work? Our species 
cannot all be idle. Leisure for study 
must ever be the portion of a few. The 
number employed in government must 
forever be very small. Food, raiment, 
and habitations, the indispensable 
wants of all, are not to be obtained 
without the continual toil of ninety- 
nine in a hundred of mankind. As rest 
is rapture to the weary man, those who 
labor little will always be envied by 
those who labor much, though the lat¬ 
ter in reality be probably the most en¬ 
viable. 


With all the encouragements, public 
and private, which can never be given 
to general education, and it is scarcely 
possible they should be too many or 
too great, the laboring part of the peo¬ 
ple can never be learned. The contro¬ 
versy between the rich and the poor, 
the laborious and the idle, the learned 
and the ignorant, distinctions as old as 
the creation, and as extensive as the 
globe, distinctions which no art or 
policy, no degree of virtue or philoso¬ 
phy can ever wholly destroy, will 
continue, and rivalries will spring out 
of them. 

These parties will be represented in 
the legislature, and must be balanced 
or one will oppress the other. There 
will never probably be found any other 


—John Adams, 1790. 

* * * 


■V\7'HEN I went home to my family 
* ^ in May, 1770, from the town 
where I had been chosen in my ab¬ 
sence, without any solicitation, one of 
their representatives, I said to my 
wife, I have accepted a seat in the 
House of the Representatives, and 
thereby have consented to my own 
ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our 
children. I give you this warning, that 
you may prepare your mind for your 
fate. She burst into tears, but instant¬ 
ly cried out in a transport of magna¬ 
nimity, “Well, I am willing in this 
cause to run all risks with you, and 
be ruined with you, if you are ruined.” 
These were times, my friend, in Bos¬ 
ton, which tried women’s souls as well 
as men’s. 

—John Adams. 

* * * 


r I ''HESE are the times that try men’s 
A souls. The summer soldier and the 
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, 
shrink from the service of his country; 
but he that stands it now, deserves the 
love and thanks of man and woman. 
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily con¬ 
quered; yet we have this consolation 
with us, that the harder the conflict 
the more glorious the triumph. 

—Thomas Paine. 


HPO live with all my might, while I 
do live. Never to do anything, 
which I should be afraid to do, if it 
were the last hour of my life. To think 
much, on all occasions, of my dying 
and of the common circumstances 
which attend death. When I feel pain, 
to think of the pains of martyrdom, and 
of hell. When I think of any theorem 
in divinity to be solved, immediately to 


297 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


do what I can toward solving it, if cir¬ 
cumstances do not hinder. If I take 
delight in it as a gratification of pride, 
or vanity, or on any such account, im¬ 
mediately to throw it by. Never to suf¬ 
fer the least emotions of anger toward 
irrational beings. Never to speak evil of 
any one, so that it shall tend to his dis¬ 
honor, more or less, upon no account 
except for some real good. 


That’s how I’ve traveled my voyage: 
under cover: invisible: never named by 
those who make out the lists: 

A mere atom, maybe, yet a necessary 
grain of sand. Perhaps the most needed 
item of all yet unspelled in words. 

—Traubel. 

* * * 


—Jonathan Edwards. 


* * * 

T’VE met the sayers of democracy. 
A But I want to meet the democrat. 
They say the people may be all right 
sometimes, but not yet. I take the 
people as they are. I don’t idealize 
them. They’re the sure material in my 
foundations. I don’t give them faith. 
They give me faith. They’re not built 
upon me. I’m built upon them. 

—Traubel. 


* * * 


T FREQUENTLY hear persons in 
A old age, say how they would live, 
if they were to live their lives over 
again: Resolved, That I will live just 
as I can think I shall wish I had done, 
supposing I live to old age. 

—Jonathan Edwards. 

* * * 


CO I kept on: while my betters were 
^ doing the recognized thing I was 
left with what was discarded: 

I took my place in the ranks: 

I was happy: it’s best of all to just 
serve unseen: 

It’s not half as much fun being the 
rose as the root: oh how I like it 
down there in the ground! 

It’s not half as much fun eating the 
fruit as having been the cause of the 
fruit: Oh! How I like it being a ray 
of the sun! 

It’s more my wish to be something 
very necessary yet totally unknown: to 
be required but denied: 


r FHE whole human family, scarred 
and tortured, prays for peace; and 
yet there is no peace. When shall we 
cease to live in this atmosphere of 
war? When shall we escape from the 
spell of war? When shall we loosen 
the grip of the monster? This is the 
most stupendous problem in the world 
today. Beside this question, all other 
questions are subsidiary and incidental. 
Without a solution, and a favorable 
solution of this riddle, human progress 
becomes a misfortune, the inventions 
of the human mind a curse, and civil¬ 
ization, so-called, an alluring trap into 
which men and women are ensnared to 
a death of unspeakable torture. 

—Senator Borah. 

* * * 

"^"0 one is lost who stays with him- 
self. And no one is found who wan¬ 
ders from himself. There is no practi¬ 
cal and unpractical. There is no rea¬ 
sonable and unreasonable. There is 
only a man and his vision. There is 
only what a man is and what a man 
sees. And if he fails to follow what he 
sees he deserts himself. 

—Traubel. 


* * * 

T DON’T propose to hand myself 
A back to the residual gases. I pro¬ 
pose to pass myself forward to the 
impeccable gods. 

—Traubel. 


A SK of politicians the ends for which 
Maws were originally designed, and 
they will answer that the laws were de¬ 
signed as a protection for the poor 
and weak, against the oppression of 
the rich and powerful. But surely no 


298 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


pretense can be so ridiculous; a man 
might as well tell me he has taken off 
my load; because he has changed the 
burden. 

—Edmund Burke. 


* * * 


A MERICA is lawyer-ridden. 
1 ^sequently, it is law-ridden. 


Con- 


Not only have these lawyer-politicians 
indulged in an orgy of law-making, but 
they have contrived to set up our courts 
exactly to their liking. 


Judges are as liable as any other mor¬ 
tals to make mistakes, particularly 
when their own interests, or the inter¬ 
ests of their close, personal friends, are 
concerned. 

—B. C. Forbes. 


* * * 


T CAN’T follow the hair-splitters and 
A the quibblers. The document wor¬ 
shippers and the constitution mongers. 
For the people always come back to 
me. The plaintive cry of the people. 
I can’t draw lines. They’re all people. 
Just about equally wise. Just about 
equally foolish. Just about equally 
deceived. Just about equally brutal¬ 
ized. 

—Traubel. 


* * * 


'T'HIS is the real issue that will con- 
tinue in this country when these 
poor tongues of Judge Douglas and 
myself shall be silent. It is the eternal 
struggle between these two principles, 
right and wrong, throughout the world. 
They are the two principles that have 
stood face to face from the beginning 
of time. 


The one is the common right of hu¬ 
manity, the other the divine right of 
kings. It is the same principle in what¬ 
ever shape it develops itself. It is the 
same spirit that says you toil and work 
and earn bread and I’ll eat it. 

—Abraham Lincoln. 


T') O you know that since the Supreme 
Court in 1922 declared the Child 
Labor Law unconstitutional, child labor 
in the factories, fields and canneries 
has increased at an alarming rate? 

Do you know that the increase in 11 
cities is 57 per cent, in 14 cities 24 per 
cent, in 5 cities 100 per cent, while in 
others it has run up to 800 per cent? 

Do you know that in Waterbury, 
Conn., nearly eight times as many chil¬ 
dren received work permits in 1923 as 
in 1922? 

Do you know that in Manchester, N. 

H. , more than five times as many chil¬ 
dren are at work as there were a year 
ago? 

Do you know that working in the beet 
fields makes the backs of little boys 
and girls crooked, and that in two 
counties alone in Colorado there are 
715 children under 6 years of age and 

I, 400 between 6 and 16 years at work 
in the fields from eight to ten hours 
a day for weeks at a time? 

Do you know that in the anthracite 
mining district in Pennsylvania many 
children of 13 and 14 years of age have 
taken their place as full-time wage- 
earners? 

Do you know that the child mortality 
rates are distressingly high in this 
same district? 

Do you know that in Louisiana in the 
oyster and shrimp canneries children 
of 8 and 10 and 12 are working from 
six o’clock in the morning until ten 
o’clock at night? 

Do you know that in North Carolina 
boys may enter the mills at 12, and 
boys and girls between 14 and 16 may 
be employed eleven hours a day? 

Do you know that in Georgia orphans 
or children of widowed mothers may 
work in factories at the age of 12 and 
may be worked sixty hours a week, and 
that after they are 14J4 they may le¬ 
gally work all night? 

If you do not know all of these facts 
and figures—and they are only a drop 
in the bucket—it is about time you did. 
If you have pity of heart and wisdom 
of spirit, help the children of the na¬ 
tion to escape from the toils of the ex¬ 
ploiter. Support the McCormick Child 


299 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


Labor Amendment, which will give 
Congress power to erase from our na¬ 
tional record the black mark of child 
destruction. 

If you wish to know more about condi¬ 
tions in factories, fields, mines, can¬ 
neries, write to Miss Grace Abbott, 
Children’s Bureau, United States De¬ 
partment of Labor, Washington, D. C., 
from the reports of which the fore¬ 
going statistics were taken. 

—Pictorial Review for February, 
1924. 


* * * 


A/fORALITY and religion are but 
words to him who fishes in gut¬ 
ters for the means of sustaining life, 
and crouches behind barrels in the 
street for shelter from the cutting 
blasts of a winter night. 

—Horace Greeley. 

* * * 

TN the State of Colorado in the beet 
A fields, 800 children below fourteen 
years of age are working from nine to 
eleven hours a day, and at least 200 of 
these children are less than ten years 
of age. Do you think any education is 
needed there? 


'THE first effect of the automatic 
A tool was to deal the apprentice sys¬ 
tem a death-blow. It lingers on in 
many trades, but is no longer a deter¬ 
mining factor in the basic industries, 
because automatic machinery has 
forced factory gates ajar for all men of 
ordinary intelligence and average man¬ 
ual dexterity. Gradually, but in in¬ 
creasing volume, the surplus labor of 
the countryside, whose power was not 
being fully exploited on the land, be¬ 
gan to flow toward higher wages and 
the comforts and amusements to be 
purchased with those wages. 

—Arthur Pound. 


* * * 


HTHE waste by management in the 
A building industry amounts to 65 
per cent; by labor 21 per cent, and by 
breaking of contracts, 14 per cent. 
This means 300 per cent more waste 
by management than by labor in this 
industry. 

In the metal trades 81 per cent of the 
waste is due to management, and 9 per 
cent to labor, a difference in waste of 
800 per cent between the two. Similar 
conditions were found to exist in the 
four other fundamental industries in¬ 
vestigated. 

—Commission of Engineers investi¬ 
gation Waste in Industry in 1921, at 
the request of Herbert Hoover, Secre¬ 
tary of Commerce. 


—Dr. Albert Freiberg. 

* * * 

THIRST, the man and the beast; then, 
A the man and the hand-tool; now, 
the man and the machine-tool! 

This is the century of the automatic 
machine. The social problem is to ac¬ 
commodate the use of automatic ma¬ 
chinery to the well-being of the mass¬ 
es; our political problem is to avert 
class and state wars growing out of 
quarrels over the profits, powers, and 
privileges accruing through the pro¬ 
duction and marketing of goods. Much 
of our modern heart-searching, if intel¬ 
ligently directed, leads down to the 
Iron Man at the base of the industrial 
structure. He claims the twentieth 
century as his; the social and economic 
forces that he releases are those most 
likely to carry on into the future the 
reality of our day. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 

' I ''HERE is a new vigor in poetry. 

As I see it, the people are respond¬ 
ing to a renewal of humaneness among 
the poets; human subjects, natural lan¬ 
guage and vital impulses. We have 
been slowly emerging from the aes¬ 
thetic vanity of the nineties toward 
poetic health again; and the public is 
quick now to perceive it. The patter of 
the so-called schools of poetry will do 
no harm, I think; for they will freshen 
and diversify technique. But they are 


300 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


a side-show. And the three rings in 
the main tent are beauty, vigor and 
common-sense. 

—Witter Bynner. 

* * * 

\ MERICAN-mindedness, of itself 
1 new, would never accept a great 
love-story. It would be called senti¬ 
mental, if not lascivious. The average 
American is an impossible lover, mak¬ 
ing it incidental to business. The real 
and sham are equally above him. He 
would not know when to be exalted or 
when to be ashamed. He thinks of his 
own passion as evil, and thus makes 
it so. The great love-story can only 
be written with creative dynamics, and 
can only be accepted by the few of cor¬ 
responding receptivity. There is noth¬ 
ing soft about true romance. Some 
passionate singer of the New Age will 
likely appear right soon, his story to 
have the full redolence and lustre of 
the heart, his emotions thoroughbred, 
his literary quality at the same time 
crystalline with Reality. 

—Will Levington Comfort. 

* * * 

T_TE who depends upon a job vests 
himself with a proprietary inter¬ 
est therein. Instincts remaining im¬ 
mune to legal distinctions, he speaks 
of “my job,” when he may be tossed 
out of it within the hour. No ordinary 
human ever doubts that he is entitled 
to the means of life; therefore, the 
wage-employee instinctively assumes 
proprietorship over that which is es¬ 
sential to his life. In industrial civili¬ 
zation the job is essential to the com¬ 
mon man. 

His defense of his job, his reaction 
against the invader who comes be¬ 
tween him and his job, is an instinct 
as his defense of his life, his home, or 
his woman. His job, indeed, is the 
first line of home-defense. Job gone, 
the home is in sore danger; unless an¬ 
other job can be found before the sav¬ 
ings go, the home is ruined. More¬ 
over, unless he can keep the job up to 
standard, he cannot keep his home or 
himself up to standard. The job is the 
measure of social fitness, of his stand¬ 
ing in the community; by it the com¬ 
mon man rises and by it he falls. Hence 
the apparent anomaly, of a man fight¬ 
ing for the niche in the workaday 


world which he walked out of, is no 
anomaly at all. 

The striker leaves the job, not of his 
own free will, but impelled by a con¬ 
viction that the job needs improving. 
It is still, in his view, his job; but 
not worth keeping on existing terms 
except as a last resort, under pressure 
of necessity. When he strikes he ex¬ 
pects to return. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 

DEHOLD us here, so many thou- 
sands, millions, and increasing at 
the rate of fifty every hour. We are 
right willing and able to work; and on 
the Planet Earth is plenty of work and 
wages for a million times as many. 

We ask, if you mean to lead us to¬ 
wards work; to try to lead us,—by 
ways new, never yet heard of till this 
new unheard-of-Time? Or if you de¬ 
clare that you cannot lead us? And 
expect that we are to remain quietly 
unled, and in a composed manner per¬ 
ish of starvation? 

What is it you expect of us? What is 
it you mean to do with us? This ques¬ 
tion, I say, has been put in the hearing 
of all Britain; and will be again put, 
and even again, till some answer be 
given it. 

—Thomas Carlyle. 

* * * 

TT is a significant institution, this war 
that is inflicted on the many by 
politicians and other proud and well- 
to-do leaders of opinion. This last and 
biggest war was to make the world 
safe for democracy. It made France 
more reactionary and militaristic than 
she had been since Napoleon III. It 
put Italy under a dictator who boasted 
of crushing parliamentary government. 
Spain, Bulgaria, Greece—you can pick 
up other places on the map for your¬ 
self. Don’t forget the United States, 
where the Department of Justice and 
likewise the State Department and the 
Klan have joined the thinking that we 
used to watch in less powerful bodies 
like the Civic Federation. If this was 
a war to make the world safe for de¬ 
mocracy, what, if waged for some other 
purpose, would it have done to a silly 
world that is so easily stuffed full of 
nonsense when tricky words are 
flashed across its face? 

—Norman Hapgood. 


301 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


\\7 E have, it seems, discovered other 
* * things, which our guardians must 
by all means watch against, that they 
may nowise escape their notice and 
steal into the city. 

What kinds of things are these? 
Riches, said I, and poverty. 

—Plato. 

* * * 

'IX/'HEN the American people come 
to the conclusion that the ju¬ 
diciary of this land is usurping to it¬ 
self the functions of the legislative de¬ 
partment of the Government, and by 
judicial construction only is declaring 
what should be the public policy of the 
United States, we will find trouble. 
Ninety millions of people—all sorts of 
people with all sorts of opinions—are 
not going to submit to the usurpation 
by the judiciary of the functions of 
other departments of the Government 
and the power on its part to declare 
what is the public policy of the United 
States. 1 

—Justice Harlan, Associate Justice, U. 

S. Supreme Court. 

* * * 

A^T’E have ten persons of every thou- 
’’ sand in this country who cannot 
read and write. England has five, 
Sweden and Norway have only one. 
These are astonishing figures. 

—Dr. Albert Freiberg. 

* * * 

HPHE bells will peal, long-haired men 
A will dress in golden sacks to pray 
for successful slaughter. And the old 
story will begin again, the awful cus¬ 
tomary acts. 

The editors of the daily Press will be¬ 
gin virulently to stir men up to hatred 
and manslaughter in the name of pa- 
trotism, happy in the receipt of an in¬ 
creased income. Manufacturers, mer¬ 
chants, contractors for military stores, 
will hurry joyously about their busi¬ 
ness, in the hope of double receipts. 

All sorts of Government officials will 
buzz about, foreseeing a possibility of 
purloining something more than usual. 
The military authorities will hurry 
hither and thither, drawing double pay 
and rations, and with the expectation 

302 


of receiving for the slaughter of other 
men various silly little ornaments 
which they so highly prize, as ribbons, 
crosses, orders, and stars. Idle ladies 
and gentlemen will make a great fuss, 
entering their names in advance for the 
Red Cross Society, and ready to bind 
up the wounds of those whom their 
husbands and brothers will mutilate; 
and they will imagine that in so doing 
they are performing a most Christian 
work. 

And, smothering despair within their 
souls by songs, licentiousness, and 
wine, men will trail along, torn from 
peaceful labor, from their wives, 
mothers and children—hundreds of 
thousands of simple-minded, good- 
natured men with murderous weapons 
in their hands—anywhere they may be 
driven. 

They will march, freeze, hunger, suf¬ 
fer sickness, and die from it, or finally 
come to some place where they will be 
slain by thousands or kill thousands 
themselves with no reason; men whom 
they have never seen before, and who 
neither have done nor could do them 
any mischief. 

And when the number of sick, 
wounded and killed becomes so great 
that there are not hands enough left 
to pick them up, and when the air is so 
infected with the putrefying scent of 
the “food for Powder” that even the 
authorities find it disagreeable, a truce 
will be made, the wounded will be 
picked up anyhow, the sick will be 
brought in and huddled together in 
heaps, the killed will be covered with 
earth and lime, and once more the 
crowd of deluded men will be led on 
and on till those who have devised the 
project, weary of it, or till those who 
thought to find it profitable receive 
their spoil. And so once more men 
will be made savage, fierce and brutal, 
and love will wane in the world, and 
the Christianizing of mankind, which 
has already begun, will lapse for 
scores and for hundreds of years. 

And so the men who reaped profit from 
it all will assert that since there has 
been a war there must needs have been 
one, and that other wars will follow 
and they will again prepare future gen¬ 
erations for a continuance of slaugh¬ 
ter, depraving them from their birth. 

—Leo Tolstoi. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


T^HE sun is my father, and the earth 
A is my mother; and on her bosom 
I will repose. 

—Tecumseh, 1768-1813. 

* * * 

TN the wars of the European Powers, 
A in matters relating to themselves, 
we have never taken any part, nor does 
it comport with our policy so to do. 
It is only when our rights are invaded 
or seriously menaced that we resent 
injuries or make preparations for our 
defense. With the movements in this 
hemisphere we are, of necessity, more 
immediately connected, and by causes 
which must be obvious to all enlight¬ 
ened and impartial observers. 

The political system of the Allied 
Powers is essentially different in this 
respect from that of America. This 
difference proceeds from that which 
exists in their respective Govern¬ 
ments ; and to the defense of our own, 
which has been achieved by the loss of 
so much blood and treasure, and ma¬ 
tured by the wisdom of their most en¬ 
lightened citizens, and under which we 
have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this 
whole nation is devoted. 

We owe it, therefore, to candor, and 
to the amicable relations existing be¬ 
tween the United States and those 
powers, to declare that we should con¬ 
sider any attempt on their part to ex¬ 
tend their system to any portion of 
this hemisphere, as dangerous to our 
peace and safety. 

With the existing Colonies or depend¬ 
encies of any European power we have 
not interfered, and shall not interfere. 
But with the governments who have 
declared their independence and main¬ 
tained it, whose independence we have, 
on great consideration and on just 
principles, acknowledged, we could not 
view any interposition for the purpose 
of oppressing them or controlling, in 
any other manner their destiny, by any 
European power, in any other light 
than as the manifestation of an un¬ 
friendly disposition toward the United 
States. 

—James Monroe, 1758-1831. 

* * * 

TT is impossible for a man to be 
cheated by any one but himself. 

—Emerson. 


CIR, I had rather be right than be 
^ President! 

—Senator W. C. Preston, 1839. 

* * h= 

A POWER has risen up in the gov- 
1 v ernment greater than the people 
themselves, consisting of many and 
various and powerful interests, com¬ 
bined in one mass, and held together 
by the cohesive power of the vast sur¬ 
plus in the banks. 

—John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782-1850. 

* * * 

T HATE the prostitution of the name 
A of friendship to signify modish and 
worldly alliances. I much prefer the 
company of plough-boys and tin ped¬ 
dlers to the silken and perfumed 
amity which only celebrates its day 
of encounter by a frivolous display, by 
rides in a curricle, and dinners at the 
best tavern. 

—Emerson. 

* * * 

VI7TTH you I hate, deplore and de- 
* * nounce the Barbarism of Slavery. 
But I do not agree that the National 
Government has power under the Con¬ 
stitution to touch Slavery in the 
States, any more than it has power to 
touch the twin Barbarism of Polygamy 
in the States, while fully endowed to 
arrest and suppress both in all the ter¬ 
ritories. 

—Charles Sumner, 1811-74. 

* * He 

HPO look up and not down, 

To look forward and not back, 

To look out and not in,—and 
To lend a hand. 

—Edward Everett Hale, 1822. 

He He He 

'T’HE President should strive to be 
always mindful of the fact that he 
serves his party best who serves the 
country best. 

—Rutherford Birchard Hayes. 

-1822-93 


303 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


CPEECH is power; speech is to per- 
^ suade, to convert, to compel. It is 
to bring another out of his bad sense 
into your good sense. You are to be 
missionary and carrier of all that is 
good and noble. Virtues speak to vir¬ 
tues, vices to vices, each to their own 
kind in the people with whom they 
deal. 

—Emerson. 


]Y/[ISUNDERSTOOD! It is a right 
fool’s word. Is it so bad then to 
be misunderstood? Pythagoras was 
misunderstood, and Socrates, and 
Jesus, and Luther and Copernicus, and 
Galileo, and Newton, and every pure 
and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To 
be great is to be misunderstood. 

—Emerson. 


* * * 

HTHE art of fiction has, in fact, be- 

A come a finer art in our day than it 
was with Dickens and Thackeray. 

We could not suffer the confidential 
attitude of the latter now, nor the man¬ 
nerism of the former, any more than 
we could endure the prolixity of Rich¬ 
ardson or the coarseness of Fielding. 

—William Dean Howells, 1837. 

* * * 

T> EASON is the triumph of the in- 
tellect; faith, of the heart; and 
whether the one or the other shall best 
illumine the dark mysteries of our be¬ 
ing, they only are to be despaired of 
who care not to explore. 


* * * 

TT is a condition which confronts us 
—not a theory. 

—Grover Cleveland. 

H* H* 

OMMUNISM is a hateful thing 
^ and a menace to peace and or¬ 
ganized government. But the com¬ 
munism of combined wealth and capi¬ 
tal, the outgrowth of overweening 
cupidity and selfishness which assidu¬ 
ously undermines the justice and in¬ 
tegrity of free institutions, is not less 
dangerous than the communism of op¬ 
pressed poverty and toil, which, exas¬ 
perated by injustice and discontent, at¬ 
tacks with wild disorder the citadel of 
misrule. 

—Grover Cleveland, 1888. 


—James Schouler, 1839. 

* * * 

T was a high counsel that I once 
heard given to a young person. Al¬ 
ways do what you are afraid to do. 

—Emerson. 


* * * 

TF I were asked what book is better 
than a cheap book, I should answer 
that there is one book better than a 
cheap book, and that is a book honest¬ 
ly come by. 

—James Russell Lowell. 

% ❖ 


* * * 

T5UBLIC officers are the servants 
A and agents of the people to execute 
laws which the people have made, and 
within the limits of a constitution 
which they have established. 

—Grover Cleveland. 

* * * 

OUT what man is fit to hold office? 

Only he who regards political of¬ 
fice as a public trust, and not as a pri¬ 
vate perquisite to be used for the pe¬ 
cuniary advantage of himself or his 
family, or even his party. 

—Abram Stevens Hewitt, 1822. 


nro be seventy years young is some- 
times far more cheerful and hope¬ 
ful than to be forty years old. 

—Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

* * * 

TT used to be an applauded political 
A maxim, which was expressed in the 
words, “Measures, not men.” I ven¬ 
ture to deny the soundness of this 
maxim, and to propose in its place its 
converse. “Men, not measures.” I 
think the first need of good govern¬ 
ment, like the first need of a large busi¬ 
ness corporation, is the right men to 
administer it. 

Right in character, in ability, in pa¬ 
triotism, in disinterestedness. . . . Bet- 


304 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


er a hundred times an honest and cap¬ 
able administration of an erroneous 
policy than a corrupt and incapable ad¬ 
ministration of a good one. 

—Edward John Phelps, 1822. 

❖ % 

TT is impossible to deny that dishonest 
men often grow rich and famous, 
becoming powerful in their parish or 
in parliament. Their portraits simper 
from shop windows; and they live and 
die respected. This success is theirs; 
yet it is not the success which a noble 
soul will envy. 

—George Henry Lewes. 

* * * 

T WOULD not have the reader con- 
A elude that because I advocate plain- 
speaking even of unpopular views, I 
mean to imply that originality and 
sincerity are always in opposition to 
public opinion. There are many points 
both of doctrine and feeling in which 
the world is not likely to be wrong. 
But in all cases it is desirable that men 
should not pretend to believe opinions 
which they really reject, or express 
emotions they do not feel. And this 
rule is universal. 

—George Henry Lewes. 

* * * 

A ND of yet greater importance is it 
deeply to know that every beauty 
possessed by the language of a nation 
is significant of the innermost laws of 
its being. Keep the temper of the peo¬ 
ple stern and manly; make their asso¬ 
ciations grave, courteous, and for wor¬ 
thy objects; occupy them in just 
deeds; and their tongue must needs be 
a grand one. Nor is it possible, there¬ 
fore—observe the necessary reflected 
action—that any tongue should be a 
noble one, of which the words are not 
so many trumpet-calls to action. All 
great languages invariably utter great 
things, and command them; they can¬ 
not be mimicked but by obedience; the 
breath of them is inspiration because 
it is not only vocal, but vital; and you 
can only learn to speak as these men 
spoke, by becoming what these men 
were. 

—John Ruskin. 


T N a monarchy there are two classes, 
A those who command and those who 
obey; the character and expression 
produced are those of affability, grace, 
gentleness, honour, and gallantry. Un¬ 
der a despotism we shall see on each 
countenance the influence of slavery, 
and we shall have gentle, timid faces, 
with a modest expression, deprecating 
and entreating. The slave walks with 
head bent; he seems always expecting 
the sword to fall on his neck. 

—Denis Diderot. 

* * * 

TN brief, the public is composed of 
numerous groups who cry to us: 
Console me. Amuse me. Make me 
sad. Make me sympathetic. Make 
me dream. Make me laugh. Make me 
shudder. Make me weep. Make me 
think. Some rare spirits alone request 
of the artist: Make me something 
beautiful, in the form which suits you 
best, according to your temperament. 

—Guy De Maupassant. 

* # * 

f I i O arrest, for the space of a breath, 
the hands busy about the work of 
the earth, and compel men entranced 
by the sight of distant goals to glance 
for a moment at the surrounding vi¬ 
sion of form and colour, of sunshine 
and shadows; to make them pause for 
a look, for a sigh, for a smile—such is 
the aim, difficult and evanescent, and 
reserved only for a very few to achieve. 
But sometimes, by the deserving and 
the fortunate, even that task is ac¬ 
complished. And when it is accom¬ 
plished—behold!—all the truth of life 
is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a 
smile—and the return to an eternal 
rest. 

—Joseph Conrad. 

$ * * 

HTHOU shalt have no other gods be- 
A fore me. 

Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven images, or any likeness of any¬ 
thing that is in the heaven above, or 
that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
in the water under the earth. 

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
them, nor serve them: for I the Lord 
thy God am a jealous God, visiting 

305 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth gen¬ 
eration of them that hate me. 

And shewing mercy unto thousands 
of them that love me, and keep my 
commandments. 

Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that tak- 
eth his name in vain. 

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it 
holy. Six days shalt thou labor and 
do all thy work: but the seventh day is 
the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it 
thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man¬ 
servant, nor thy maidservant, nor the 
cattle, nor the stranger that is within 
the gates. 

For in six days the Lord made heav¬ 
en and earth, the sea, and all that in 
them is, and rested the seventh day; 
wherefore the Lord blessed the sab¬ 
bath day, and hallowed it. 

Honour thy father and thy mother 
that thy days may be long upon the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee. 

Thou shalt not kill. 

Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

Thou shalt not steal. 

Thou shalt not bear false witness 
against thy neighbour. 

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s 
•house, thou shalt not covet thy 
neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, 
nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his 
ass, nor anything that is thy neigh¬ 
bour’s. 

—The Commandments. 

* * * 

OLESSED are the poor in spirit: for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blesed are they that mourn: for they 
shall be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek: for they shall 
inherit the earth. 

Blessed are they which do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness: for they 
shall be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall 
obtain mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they 
shall see God. 


Blessed are the peacemakers: for they 
shall be called the children of God. 
Blessed are they which are persecuted 
for righteousness sake: for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile 
you, and persecute you, and shall say 
all manner of evil against you falsely, 
for my sake. 

—Sermon on the Mount. 

* * * 

T DO not despise genius—indeed, I 
A wish I had a basketful of it instead 
of a brain; but yet, after a great deal 
of experience and observation, I have 
become convinced that industry is a 
better horse to ride than genius. It 
may never carry any one man as far 
as genius has carried individuals, but 
industry—patient, steady, intelligent 
industry—will carry thousands into 
comfort and even into celebrity, and 
this it does with absolute certainty; 
whereas genius often refuses to be 
tamed and managed, and often goes 
with wretched morals. If you are to 
wish for either, wish for industry. 

—Julian Ralph. 

* * * 

AUHEN you define liberty you limit 
" * it, and when you limit it you de¬ 
stroy it. 

—Brand Whitlock. 

* * * 

T ET us endeavor so to live that when 
- L/ we come to die even the under¬ 
taker will be sorry. 

—Mark Twain. 

* * * 

r I TIEN and indeed for many years 
after, it seemed as though there 
was no end to the money needed to 
carry on and develop the business. As 
our successes began to come, I seldom 
put my head upon the pillow at night 
without speaking a few words to my¬ 
self in this wise: Now a little success, 
soon you will fall down, soon you will 
be overthrown. Because you are quite 
a merchant; look out, or you will lose 
your head—go steady. These intimate 
conversations with myself, I am sure 
had a great influence on my life. 

—John D. Rockefeller. 


306 


SCRAP BOOK 

T> EADING is to the mind what ex¬ 
ercise is to the body. As by the 
one, health is preserved, strengthened 
and invigorated: by the other, virtue 
(which is the health of the mind) is 
kept alive, cherished and confirmed. 

—Addison. 

* * * 

(7J.IVE me the money that has been 
spent in war, and I will clothe 
every man, woman and child in an at¬ 
tire of which kings and queens would 
be proud. I will build a schoolhouse 
in every valley over the whole earth. 

I will crown every hillside with a place 
of worship consecrated to the gospel of 
peace. 

—Charles Sumner. 

* * * 

'C'ACH and every man ought to in- 
^ terest himself in public affairs. 
There is no happiness in mere dollars. 
After they are acquired, one can use 
but a very moderate amount. It is 
given a man to eat so much, to wear 
so much, and to have so much shelter, 
and more he can not use. When money 
has supplied these, its mission, so far 
as the individual is concerned, is ful¬ 
filled, and man must look still further 
and higher. It is only in wide public 
affairs, where money is a moving force 
toward the general welfare, that the 
possessor of it can possibly find pleas¬ 
ure, and that only in constantly doing 
more. The greatest good a man can 
do is to cultivate himself, develop his 
power, in order that he may be of 
greater service to humanity. 

—Marshall Field. 

* * * 

T WOULD rather be sick than idle. 

A —Seneca. 

* * * 

TT is nothing to give pension and cot- 
tage to the widow who has lost 
her son; it is nothing to give food and 
medicine to the workman who has 
broken his arm, or the decrepit woman 
wasting in sickness. But it is some¬ 
thing to use your time and strength to 
war with the waywardness and 
thoughtlessness of mankind; to keep 
the erring workman in your service 

307 


SECTION 

till you have made him an unerring 
one, and to direct your fellow-mer¬ 
chant to the opportunity which his 
judgment would have lost. 

—John Ruskin. 

* * * 

T>IGOTRY has no head and cannot 
think, no heart and cannot feel. 
When she moves it is in wrath; when 
she pauses it is amid ruin. Her pray¬ 
ers are curses, her God is a demon, her 
community is death, her decalogue 
written in the blood of her victims, 
and if she stops for a moment in her 
infernal flight it is upon a kindred rock 
to whet her vulture fang for a more 
sanguinary desolation. 

—Daniel O’Connell. 

* * * 

r I ’’HAT we should do unto others as 
A we would have them do unto us— 
that we should respect the rights of 
others as scrupulously as we would 
have our rights respected—is not a 
mere counsel of perfection to individ¬ 
uals—but it is the law to which we 
must conform social institutions and 
national policy, if we would secure the 
blessings and abundance of peace. 

—Henry George. 

* * * 

‘C'DUCATION does not mean teach¬ 
ing people what they do not know. 
It means teaching them to behave as 
they do not behave. It is not teaching 
the youth the shapes of letters and the 
tricks of numbers, and then leaving 
them to turn their arithmetic to rog¬ 
uery, and their literature to lust. It 
means, on the contrary, training them 
into the perfect exercise and kingly 
continence of their bodies and souls. 
It is a painful, continual and difficult 
work to be done by kindness, by 
watching, by warning, by precept, and 
by praise, but above all—by example. 

—John Ruskin. 

* * * 

r> AD will be the day for every man 
when he becomes absolutely con¬ 
tented with the life that he is living, 
with the thoughts that he is thinking, 
with the deeds that he is doing, when 
there is not forever beating at the doors 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


of his soul some great desire to do 
something larger, which he knows that 
he was meant and made to. do because 
he is still, in spite of all, the child of 
God. 

—Phillips Brooks. 


* * * 


OTHING is easier than fault-find- 
ing; no talent, no self-denial, no 
brains, no character are required to 
set up in the grumbling business. 

—Robert West. 

Hs * * 


"T\IE when I may, I want it said of 
^ me by those who knew me best, 
that I always plucked a thistle and 
planted a flower where I thought a 
flower would grow. 

—Abraham Lincoln. 

* * # 

A S good almost kill a man as kill a 
good book; who kills a man kills 
a reasonable creature, God’s image, 
but he who destroys a good book kills 
reason itself. 

—John Milton. 

* * * 


C ELFISHNESS is not living as one 
^ wishes to live; it is asking others 
to live as one wishes to live. And un¬ 
selfishness is letting other people’s 
lives alone, not interfering with them. 
Selfishness always aims at creating 
around it an absolute uniformity of 
type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite 
variety of type as a delightful thing, 
accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. 

—Oscar Wilde. 

* * * 

T LOVE children. They do not prat- 
A tie of yesterday: their interests are 
all of today and the tomorrow—I love 
children. 

—Richard Mansfield. 

* * * 


f I ME character and qualifications of 
the leader are reflected in the men 
he selects, develops and gathers around 
him. Show me the leader and I will 
know his men. Show me the men and 
I will know their leader. Therefore, 
to have loyal, efficient employees—be 
a loyal and efficient employer. 

—Arthur W. Newcomb. 


* * 


F all kinds of pride I hold national 
pride the most foolish; it ruined 
Greece; it ruined Judea and Rome. 

—Herder. 


OU can never dragoon men by law 
into morality. We have too many 
laws. There is a tendency in the Unit¬ 
ed States to pile on a law to most every 
new condition that arises in public life. 
If a man happens to cut his throat with 
a razor, a law banning razors at once 
goes into effect. Knives and forks will 
probably be forbidden as lethal wea¬ 
pons within a few years. A deep re¬ 
spect for less is essential especially in 
a democracy like our own, but men 
who work constitutionally for the re¬ 
peal of a law which they do not be¬ 
lieve is fulfilling their sacred civic 
duty just as certainly as the men who 
established the law. If we go on as 
we are we shall create a bureaucracy 
at Washington and a jobholder’s 
regime in which one man in every 
three in the United States will be a 
political officeholder. 

—Archbishop Curley. 

* * * 

HPHANK God, common sense is com- 
ing into its own in our relations 
to the rest of the world. When men 
and women ask for intervention, ask 
them: On whose side? What can Eu¬ 
rope want of us except advice, or mon¬ 
ey, or the pledge to use our army 
or navy? As to our money, why should 
our generosity be determined by an in¬ 
ternational committee instead of being 
kept in our own conscience? Why 
should we put a dollar into the right 
hand of any one who is going to use his 
left hand to spend it on armament? 

We have contributed billions upon bil¬ 
lions of dollars to Europe since the 
war. We have extended salvation to 
Russia, to Asia, to the Near East. Our 
taxpayers have carried the interest on 
the indebtedness of other nations. No 
one believes this is isolation. As for 
clarity of foreign policy—members of 
international conferences and leagues 
know less of each other’s plans and 
purposes than they know about the 
plans and purposes of the United 


308 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


States. I can tell you with first-hand 
knowledge that I had less trouble in 
defining where we stand than I had 
to find out where Europe stands. 

—Richard Washburn Child, former 
Ambassador to Italy. 

* * * 


that we lose sight of; and when we 
fail in respect to them, it is our own 
immortal soul that we are tramping 
under our own feet. 

—Maurice Maeterlinck. 

* * * 


1\/TEN are tattooed with their special 
beliefs like so many South Sea 
Islanders; but a real human heart with 
divine love in it beats with the same 
glow under all the patterns of all 
earth’s thousand tribes. 


—O. W. Holmes. 


TF the present condition of Europe is 
A the result of a war for righteousness 
and to make the world safe for democ¬ 
racy, next time let us try a war for 
wickedness and autocracy. 

—Israel Zangwill. 

* * * 


* * * 

TF you succeed in life, you must do it 
A in spite of the efforts of others to 
pull you down. There is nothing in 
the idea that people are willing to help 
those who help themselves. People 
are willing to help a man who can’t 
help himself, but as soon as a man is 
able to help himself, and does it, they 
join in making his life as uncomfort¬ 
able as possible. 

—E. W. Howe. 

* * * 

’^'INE-TENTHS of our people are 
wasting their lives in a hopeless 
attempt to acquire more property than 
they need, and the remaining tenth 
waste theirs in looking after and in¬ 
creasing the superfluous property they 
already possess. 

—George Bernard Shaw. 

* * * 

"VTIDDLE Age has its compensa- 
tions. One is that, on the whole, 
you feel no need to do what you do not 
like. You are no longer ashamed of 
yourself. You are reconciled to being 
what you are, and you do not much 
mind what people think of you. They 
can take you or leave you. You do not 
want to impose upon them with false 
pretenses. Youth is bound hand and 
foot with the shackles of public 
opinion. 

—Somerset Maugham. 

* * * 

O UR dead are greater and more 
truly alive than we are! When 
we forget them, it is our whole future 

309 


nPHERE is no more unhappy ten- 
A dency in our contemporary Amer¬ 
ican life than that to persecute those 
individuals with whom we may not 
ourselves happen to agree. 

—Nicholas Murray Butler. 

* * 

r I ''HE king says, I rule for all; the 
-*■ judge says, I judge for all; the sol¬ 
dier says, I fight for all; the merchant 
says, I trade for all; the priest says, 
I pray for all; the working man says, 
I pay for all. 

—John Ruskin. 

* * * 

TTIERE is but one straight road to 
success, and that is merit. The 
man who is successful is the man who 
is useful. Capacity never lacks op¬ 
portunity. It can not remain undis¬ 
covered, because it is sought by too 
many anxious to use it. 

—Bourke Cochran. 

* * * 

T NEVER make the mistake of argu- 
ing with people for whose opinions 
I have no respect. 

—Gibbon. 

* * * 

T HE law of worthy life is fundamen¬ 
tally the law of strife. It is only 
through labor and painful effort, by 
grim energy and resolute courage, that 
we move on to better things. 

—Theodore Roosevelt. 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


'"pHE man who trusts men will make 
A fewer mistakes than he who dis¬ 
trusts them. 

—Cavour. 

* * * 

P* REAT minds have purposes, oth- 
ers have wishes. Little minds are 
tamed and subdued by misfortune; but 
great minds rise above them. 

—Washington Irving. 


weak-backed assistant who is continu¬ 
ally trying to get his chief to do his 
work for him on the feeble plea that 
he thought the chief would like to de¬ 
cide this or that for himself. The man 
to whom an executive is most grateful, 
the man whom he will work hardest 
and value most, is the man who ac¬ 
cepts responsibility willingly. 

—Gifford Pinchot. 

* * * 


* * * 

A S long as nations meet on the field 
1 ^of war—as long as they sustain the 
relations of savages to each other—as 
long as they put the laurel and the oak 
on the brows of those who kill—just so 
long will citizens resort to violence, 
and the quarrels be settled by dagger 
and revolver. 

—Robert G. Ingersoll. 

* * * 

T CAN not commend to a business 
A house any artificial plan for making 
men producers—any scheme for driv¬ 
ing them into business-building. You 
must lead them through their self-in¬ 
terest. It is this alone that will keep 
men keyed up to the full capacity of 
their productiveness. 

—Charles H. Steinway. 

* * * 

TJ" OW much easier our work would 
A be if we put forth as much effort 
trying to improve the quality of it as 
most of us do trying to find excuses 
for not properly attending to it. 

—George W. Ballinger. 

* * * 


r T' , HERE is no more valuable subordi- 
nate than the man whom you can 
give a piece of work and then forget 
it, in the confident expectation that the 
next time it is brought to your atten¬ 
tion it will come in the form of a re¬ 
port that the thing has been done. 
When this self-reliant quality is joined 
to executive power, loyalty and com¬ 
mon sense, the result is a man whom 
you can trust. 


On the other hand, there is no greater 
nuisance to a man heavily burdened 
with the direction of affairs than the 


'V r OU want a better position than 
A you now have in business, a better 
and fuller place in life. All right; 
think of that better place and you in 
it as already existing. Form the 
mental image. Keep on thinking of 
that higher position, keep the image 
constantly before you, and—no, you 
will not suddenly be transported into 
the higher job, but you will find that 
you are preparing yourself to occupy 
the better position in life—your body, 
your energy, your understanding, your 
heart will all grow up to the job—and 
when you are ready, after hard work, 
after perhaps years of preparation, you 
will get the job and the higher place in 
life. 

—Joseph H. Appel. 

# * * 

r I TIE best way for a young man who 
A is without friends of influence to 
begin is: first, to get a position; second, 
to keep his mouth shut; third, observe; 
fourth, be faithful; fifth, make his em¬ 
ployer think he would be lost in a fog 
without him; sixth, be polite. 

—Russell Sage. 

* * * 

r I "'HE longer I live, the more deeply 
A I am convinced that that which 
makes the difference between one man 
and another—between the weak and 
the powerful, the great and the insig¬ 
nificant—is energy, invincible deter¬ 
mination, a purpose once formed and 

then death or victory. 

—Powell Buxton. 


* * * 

T HONOR any man who in the con- 
A scious discharge of his duty dares 
to stand alone; the world, with igno¬ 
rant intolerant judgment, may con- 


310 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


demn; the countenances of relatives 
may be averted, and the hearts of 
friends grow cold; but the sense of 
duty done shall be sweeter than the ap¬ 
plause of the world, the countenances 
of relatives, or the hearts of friends. 

—Charles Sumner. 

* * 

'^'O man lives without jostling and 
being jostled; in all ways he has 
to elbow himself through the world, 
giving and receiving offense. 

—Carlyle. 

* * * 

HPHE thing needed is not plans, but 
A men. A well-thought-out plan 
without a man to execute it is a waste 
of money; and as a rule, the more com¬ 
paratively the details have been 
thought out by a man who is not go¬ 
ing to execute them himself, the 
larger will be the amount of money 
wasted. Get a man with a plan, and 
the more money he has the greater is 
his chance of doing a larger work; but 
a plan without a man is as bad as a 
man without a plan—the more he has 
the more he wastes. 

—Arthur T. Hadley. 

* * * 

'T'O achieve what the world calls 
cess a man must attend strictly to 
business and keep a little in advance 
of the times. The man who reaches 
the top is the one who is not content 
with doing just what is required of him. 
He does more. Every man should 
make up his mind that if he expects 
to succeed, he must give an honest re¬ 
turn for the other man’s dollar. Grasp 
an idea and work it out to a successful 
conclusion. That’s about all there is 
in life for any of us. 

—Edward H. Harriman. 

* * * 

Tj'ULL of anxieties and apprehending 
daily that we should hear distress¬ 
ing news from Boston, I walked with 
Mr. Samuel Adams in the State House 
yard (Philadelphia) for a little exer¬ 
cise and fresh air, before the hour of 
(the Continental) Congress, and there 
represented to him the various dangers 
that surrounded us. He agreed to them 


all, but said, what shall we do? I an¬ 
swered him I was determined to take 
a step which should compel all the 
members of Congress to declare them¬ 
selves for or against something. I am 
determined this morning to make a 
direct motion that Congress should 
adopt (as its own) the army before 
Boston, and appoint Colonel Washing¬ 
ton commander of it. 

Mr. Adams seemed to think very seri¬ 
ously of it, but he said nothing. Ac¬ 
cordingly, when Congress had as¬ 
sembled, I rose in my place. . . . Mr. 
Washington, who happened to sit near 
the door, as soon as he heard me allude 
to him, from his usual modesty, darted 
into the library room. Mr. Hancock 
heard me with visible pleasure, but 
when I came to describe Washington 
for the commander, I never remarked 
a more sudden and striking change of 
countenance. Mortification and re¬ 
sentment were expressed as forcibly as 
his face could exhibit them. Mr. Sam¬ 
uel Adams seconded the motion, and 
that did not soften the president’s 
(Hancock’s) physiognomy at all. 

—John Adams. 

* * * 

T SERVED with General Washing- 
-*■ ton in the Legislature of Virginia, 
before the Revolution, and, during it, 
with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I 
never heard either of them speak ten 
minutes at a time, nor to any but the 
main point, which was to decide the 
question. They laid their shoulders to 
the great points, knowing that the lit¬ 
tle ones would follow of themselves. 
If the present Congress errs in too 
much talking, how can it be otherwise, 
in a body to which the people send one 
hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade 
it is to question everything, yield noth¬ 
ing, and talk by the hour? That one 
hundred and fifty lawyers should do 
business together ought not to be ex¬ 
pected. 

—Thomas Jefferson. 

* * * 

TF you wish to appear agreeable in 
society you must consent to be 
taught many things which you know 
already. 

—Lavater. 


311 . 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


/GENERAL: I have placed you at 
the head of the Army of the 
Potomac. Of course, I have done this 
upon what appears to me to be suffi¬ 
cient reasons, and yet I think it best for 
you to know that there are some things 
in regard to which I am not quite sat¬ 
isfied with you. I believe you to be a 
brave and skilful soldier, which of 
course I like. I also believe you do not 
mix politics with your professon, in 
which you are right. You have confi¬ 
dence in yourself, which is a valuable 
if not an indispensable quality. You 
are ambitious, which, within reason¬ 
able bounds, does good rather than 
harm; but I think that during Gen¬ 
eral Burnside’s command of the army 
you have taken counsel of your am¬ 
bition and thwarted him as much as 
you could, in which you did a great 
wrong to the country and to a most 
meritorious and honorable brother of¬ 
ficer. I have heard, such a way as to 
believe it, of your recently saying that 
both the army and the government 
needed a dictator. 

Of course, it was not for this, but in 
spite of it, that I have given you the 
command. Only those generals who 
gain successes can set up dictatorships. 
What I now ask of you is military suc¬ 
cess, and I will risk the dictatorship. 
The government will support you to 
the utmost of its ability, which is 
neither more nor less than it has done 
and will do for commanders. I much 
fear that the spirit which you have 
aided to infuse into the army, of criti¬ 
cizing their commander and with¬ 
holding confidence from him, will now 
turn upon you. I shall assist you as 
far as I can to put it down. Neither 
you nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
again, could get any good out of an 
army while such a spirit prevails in 
it; and now beware of rashness. Be¬ 
ware of rashness, but with energy and 
sleepless vigilance go forward and give 
us victories. Yours very truly, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

—(Letter to General J. Hooker, Jan¬ 
uary 26, 1863.) 

* * * 

* I '•HERE is no moment like the pres- 
A ent. The man who will not execute 
his resolutions when they are fresh 
upon him can have no hope from them 
afterwards: they will be dissipated, 

312 


lost and perish in the hurry and scurry 
of the world, or sunk in the slough of 
indolence. 

—Maria Edgeworth. 

* * * 

T OWE all my success in life to hav- 
A ing been always a quarter of an 
hour before hand. 

—Lord Nelson. 

Hs ❖ 

f I TIE darkest hour in any man’s life 
•*- is when he sits down to plan how 
to get money without earning it. 

—Horace Greeley. 

* * * 

npHE leader for the time being, who- 
A ever he may be, is but an instru¬ 
ment, to be used until broken and then 
to be cast aside; and if he is worth 
his salt he will care no more when he 
is broken than a soldier cares when he 
is sent where his life is forfeit in order 
that the victory may be won. In the 
long fight for righteousness the watch¬ 
word for all of us, is spend and be 
spent. It is a little matter whether any 
one man fails or succeeds, but the 
cause shall not fail, for it is the cause 
of mankind. We, here, in America, 
hold in our hands the hope of the 
world, the fate of the coming years; 
and shame and disgrace will be ours 
if in our eyes the light of high resolve 
is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the 
golden hopes of men. If on this new 
continent, we merely build another 
country of great but unjustly divided 
material prosperity, we shall do as lit¬ 
tle if we merely set the greed of envy 
against the greed of arrogance, and 
thereby destroy the material well-be¬ 
ing of all of us. 

—Theodore Roosevelt. 

* * * 

TJTSSES, groans, catcalls, drumming 
with the feet, loud conversation 
and imitations of animals went on 
throughout (the maiden speech of 
Benjamin Disraeli in the House of 
Commons). But ... it does not fol¬ 
low that maiden speech of the mem¬ 
ber for Maidstone was a failure. It 
was indeed in one sense a very hope¬ 
ful business inasmuch as the reports 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


prove he was quite capable of holding 
his own amidst extraordinary interrup¬ 
tions. 

Mr. Disraeli wound up in these words: 
Now, Mr. Speaker, we see the philo¬ 
sophical prejudices of Man. (Laughter 
and cheers.) I respect cheers, even 
when they come from the mouth of 
a political opponent. (Renewed 
laughter.) I think, sir, (Hear, Hear! 
and repeated cries of Question!) I 
am not at all surprised, sir, at the re¬ 
ception I have met with. (Continued 
laughter). I have begun several 
things many times (laughter), and I 
have always suceeded at last. (Ques¬ 
tion.) Ay, sir, and though I sit down 
now, the time will come when you will 
hear me. 

—Disraeli. 

* * * 

T IFE would be a perpetual flea hunt 
^ if a man were obliged to run down 
all the innuendoes, inveracities, insin¬ 
uations and misrepresentations which 
are uttered against him. 

—Henry Ward Beecher. 

* * * 

Hr HE men who try to do something 
-*■ and fail are infinitely better than 
those who try to do nothing and suc¬ 
ceed. 

—Lloyd Jones. 

* * * 

'C' VERY man is said to have his 
^ peculiar ambition. Whether it be 
true or not, I can say, for one, that I 
have no other so great as that of being 
truly esteemed of my fellowmen, by 
rendering myself worthy of their es¬ 
teem. How far I shall succeed in 
gratifying this ambition is yet to be 
developed. I am young and unknown 
to many of you. I was born, and have 
ever remained, in the most humble 
walks of life. I have no wealthy or 
popular relations or friends to recom¬ 
mend me. My case is thrown upon 
the country; and, if elected, they will 
have conferred a favor upon me for 
which I shall be unremitting in my 
labors to compensate. But, if the good 
people in their wisdom shall see fit to 
keep me in the background, I have 
been too familiar with disappointments 
to be very much chagrined. 

—Lincoln to the People of Sangamon, 
March 9, 1832. 


X-TE is no madman, but the best bun¬ 
dle of nerves I ever saw; cut, 
bruised and battered, and chained be¬ 
side, he showed himself to be a man 
of courage and fortitude. He is a 
fanatic, of course, beyond all reason, 
but he thinks himself a Christian, and 
believes honestly he is called of God 
to free the negroes. They say when 
one son was dead by his side, he held 
his rifle in one hand and felt the pulse 
of another who was dying, all the time 
cautioning his men to be cool and sell 
their lives dearly. “While I was talk¬ 
ing with him,” continued Governor 
Wise, “someone called out that he was 
a robber and a murderer.” Brown re¬ 
plied, “You slaveholders are the rob¬ 
bers.” I said to him, “Captain Brown, 
your hair is matted with blood and 
you are speaking hard words. Perhaps 
you forget I am a slaveholder; you had 
better be thinking on eternity. 

“Your wounds may be fatal, and if they 
are not, you will have to stand trial for 
treason, conspiracy and murder, and 
how can you hope to escape when you 
admit your guilt?” The old man leaned 
on his elbow, and beneath the band¬ 
ages on his broken face they saw the 
blue eyes flash, and he answered me: 
“Governor Wise, you call me old but 
after all I am only ten or fifteen years, 
at most, the start of you in that jour¬ 
ney to eternity, of which you speak. 
I will leave this world first, but you 
must follow. I will meet you across 
Death’s border, and I tell you, Gov¬ 
ernor Wise, prepare for eternity. You 
admit you are a slaveholder. You 
have a responsibility weightier than 
mine. Prepare to meet your God!” 

—Governor Harry A. Wise’s Inter¬ 
view with John Brown. 

* * * 

TN the early days of the anti-slavery 
A agitation, a meeting was called at 
Faneuil Hall in Boston, which a good- 
natured mob of soldiers was hired to 
suppress. They took possession of the 
floor and danced breakdowns and 
shouted choruses and refused to hear 
any of the orators upon the platform. 
The most eloquent pleaded with them 
in vain. They were urged by the 
memories of the Cradle of Liberty, 
for the honor of Massachusetts, for 


313 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


their own honor as Boston boys, to re¬ 
spect liberty of speech. But they still 
laughed and sang and danced, and 
were proof against every appeal. 

At last a man suddenly arose from 
among themselves, and began to speak. 
Struck by his tone and quaint appear¬ 
ance, and with the thought that he 
might be one of themselves, the mob 
became suddenly still. “Well, fellow 
citizens,” he said, “I wouldn’t be quiet 
if I didn’t want to.” The words were 
greeted with a roar of delight from the 
mob, which supposed it had found its 
champion, and the applause was un¬ 
ceasing for five minutes, during which 
the strange orator tranquilly awaited 
his chance to continue. The wish to 
hear more hushed the tumult, and 
when the hall was still he resumed: 
“No, I certainly wouldn’t stop if I 
hadn’t a mind to; but then, if I were 
you, I would have a mind to!” 

The oddity of the remark and the earn¬ 
estness of the tone, held the crowd 
silent, and the speaker continued: 
“Not because this is Faneuil Hall, nor 
for the honor of Massachusetts, nor 
because you are Boston boys, but be¬ 
cause you are men, and because hon¬ 
orable and generous men always love 
fair play.” The mob was conquered. 

—George William Curtis. 

* * * 

'p'RIENDS, I have thought about 
A this matter a great deal, have 
weighed the question well from all 
corners, and am thoroughly convinced 
the time has come when it should be 
uttered; and if it must be that I must 
go down because of this speech, then 
let me go down linked to truth—die in 
the advocacy of what is right and just. 
This nation can not live on injustice. 
A house divided against itself can not 
stand, I say again and again. 

—Abraham Lincoln. 

* * * 

T LAY very little stress either upon 
asking or giving advice. Generally 
speaking, they who ask advice know 
what they wish to do, and remain firm 
to their intentions. A man may al¬ 
low himself to be enlightened on vari¬ 
ous points, even upon matters of ex¬ 


pediency and duty; but after all, he 
must determine his course of action 
for himself. 

—Wilhelm von Humboldt. 

* * * 

CNOBBERY is the pride of those 
^ who are not sure of their position. 

—Berton Braley. 

* * * 

I70URSC0RE and seven years ago 
A our fathers brought forth on this 
continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. Now 
we are engaged in a great civil war, 
testing whether that nation, or any na¬ 
tion so conceived and so dedicated, can 
long endure. We are met on a great 
battlefield of that war. We have come, 
to dedicate a portion of that field as a 
final resting place for those who here 
gave their lives that that nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and prop¬ 
er that we should do this. But in a 
larger sense we can not dedicate, we 
can not consecrate, we can not hallow 
this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here have 
consecrated it far above our poor 
power to add or detract. The world 
will little note or long remember what 
we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. 

It is for us, the living, rather to be 
dedicated here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here have 
thus far so nobly advanced. It is 
rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us, 
that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure 
of devotion; that we here highly re¬ 
solve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of free¬ 
dom, and that the government of the 
people, by the people and for the peo¬ 
ple shall not perish from the earth. 

—Address at Gettysburg by Abraham 
Lincoln. 

* * * 

A GREAT deal of talent is lost in 
1 the world for want of a little cour¬ 
age. Every day sends to their graves 
obscure men whom timidity prevented 


314 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


from making a first effort; who, if they 
could have been induced to begin, 
would in all probability have gone 
great lengths in the career of fame. 
The fact is, that to do anything in the 
world worth doing, we must not stand 
back shivering and thinking of the 
cold and danger, but jump in and 
scramble through as well as we can. 
It will not do to be perpetually calcu¬ 
lating risks and adjusting nice 
chances; it did very well before the 
Flood, when a man would consult his 
friends upon an intended publication 
for a hundred and fifty years, and live 
to see his success afterwards; but at 
present, a man waits, and doubts, and 
consults his brother, and his particular 
friends, till one day he finds he is sixty 
years old and that he has lost so much 
time in consulting cousins and friends 
that he has not more time to follow 
their advice. 

—Sydney Smith. 

* * * 

IV/fY son, remember you have to 
work, whether you handle pick 
or wheelbarrow or a set of books, dig¬ 
ging ditches or editing a newspaper, 
ringing an auction bell or writing fun¬ 
ny things, you must work. Don’t be 
afraid of killing yourself by overwork¬ 
ing on the sunny side of thirty. Men 
die sometimes, but it is because they 
quit at nine P. M. and don’t go home 
until two A. M. It’s the intervals 
that kill, my son. The work gives you 
appetite for your meals; it lends solid¬ 
ity to your slumber; it gives you a per¬ 
fect appreciation of a holiday. There 
are young men who do not work, but 
the country is not proud of them. It 
does not even know their names; it 
only speaks of them as old So-and-So’s 
boys. Nobody likes them; the great, 
busy world doesn’t know they are here. 
So find out what you want to be and 
do. Take off your coat and make dust 
in the world. The busier you are, the 
sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter 
your holidays, and the better satisfied 
the whole world will be with you. 

—Bob Burdette. 

* * * 

I T is of dangerous consequence to 
represent to man how near he is to 
the level of beasts without showing him 
> at the same time his greatness. It is 


likewise dangerous to let him see his 
greatness without his meanness. It is 
more dangerous yet to leave him igno¬ 
rant of either; but very beneficial that 
he should be made sensible of both. 

—Pascal. 


* * * 

'C'EAR is lack of faith. Lack of faith 
is ignorance. Fear can only be 
cured by vision. Give the world eyes. 
It will see. Give it ears. It will hear. 
Give it a right arm. It will act. Man 
needs time and room. Man needs soil, 
sunshine and rain. Needs a chance. 
Open all your doors and windows. 
Let everything pass freely in and out, 
out and in. Even the evil. Let it 
pass out and in, in and out. No man 
hates the truth. But most men are 
afraid of the truth. Make the truth 
easier than a lie. Make the truth wel- 
comer than its counterfeits. Then man 
will no longer be afraid, being afraid 
is being ignorant. Being ignorant is 
being without faith. 

—Horace Traubel. 

* * * 

p'INE as friendship is, there is noth- 
ing irrevocable about it. The bonds 
of friendship are not iron bonds, proof 
against the strongest of strains and 
the heaviest of assaults. A man by be¬ 
coming your friend has not committed 
himself to all the demands which you 
may be pleased to make upon him. 
Foolish people like to test the bonds 
of their friendship, pulling upon them 
to see how much strain they will stand. 

When they snap, it is as if friendship 
itself had been proved unworthy. But 
the truth is that good friendships are 
fragile things and require as much care 
in handling as any other fragile and 
precious things. For friendship is an 
adventure and a romance, and in ad¬ 
ventures it is the unexpected that hap¬ 
pens. It is the zest of peril that makes 
the excitement of friendship. All that 
is unpleasant and unfavorable is for¬ 
eign to its atmosphere; there is no 
place in friendship for harsh criticism 
or fault-finding. We will take less 
from a friend than we will from one 
who is indifferent to us. 

—Randolph S. Bourne. 


315 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


TAO your work—not just your work 
and no more, but a little more for 
the lavishing’s sake; that little more 
which is worth all the rest. And if you 
suffer as you must, and if you doubt as 
you must, do your work. Put your 
heart into it and the sky will clear. 
Then out of your very doubt and suf¬ 
fering will be born the supreme joy of 
life. 

—Dean Briggs. 

* * * 

IJUMAN and mortal though we are, 
we are, nevertheless, not mere in¬ 
sulated beings, without relation to past 
or future. Neither the point of time 
nor the spot of earth in which we 
physically live bounds our rational and 
intellectual enjoyments. We live in 
the past by a knowledge of its history, 
and in the future by hope and anticipa¬ 
tion. By ascending to an association 
with our ancestors; by comtemplating 
their example, and studying their char¬ 
acter; by partaking of their sentiments 
and imbibing their spirit; by accom¬ 
panying them in their toils; by sym¬ 
pathizing in their sufferings and re¬ 
joicing in their successes and their 
triumphs—we mingle our own exist¬ 
ence with theirs and seem to belong 
to their age. We become their con¬ 
temporaries, live the lives which they 
lived, endure what they endured, and 
partake in the rewards which they en¬ 
joyed. 

—Daniel Webster 

* * * 

THIME was when slaves were ex- 
-*■ ported like cattle from the British 
Coast and exposed for sale in the Ro¬ 
man market. These men and women 
who were thus sold were supposed to 
be guilty of witchcraft, debt, blas¬ 
phemy or theft. Or else they were 
prisoners taken in war—they had for¬ 
feited their right to freedom, and we 
sold them. We said they were incap¬ 
able of self-government and so must be 
looked after. Later we quit selling 
British slaves, but began to buy and 
trade in African humanity. We si¬ 
lenced conscience by saying, “It’s all 
right—they are incapable of self-gov¬ 
ernment.” We were once as obscure, 
as debased, as ignorant, as barbaric, as 
the African is now. I trust that the 
time will come when we are willing to 


give to Africa the opportunity, the 
hope, the right to attain to the same 
blessings that we ourselves enjoy. 

—William Pitt. 

* * * 

TJ' VEN so conservative a body as the 
Supreme Court discovers that it is 
possible to change opinions from one 
decade to another, without bringing 
the Constitution down in ruins; indeed, 
if the masses remain insistent a quiet 
mental revolution in high places is the 
approved method of averting a noisy 
physical revolution in the streets. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 

A NYBODY can cut prices, but it 
takes brains to make a better ar¬ 
ticle. 

—Philip D. Armour. 

* * * 

r I 'HE very name—the state—implies 
A no change; a misnomer, perhaps, 
yet significant as expressing the mass 
ideal of security. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 

AA7E think of America as a land of 
’ * opportunity, dotted by the 
proverbial little red schoolhouses, and 
forget that in State after State there 
is an illiterate population so numer¬ 
ous that these States stand shamed be¬ 
fore the countries of northern Europe. 
Those who were present at the hear¬ 
ings of the Senate committee will hold 
vivid remembrance of the earnest, able, 
handsome young woman who spoke 
for the Schoolroom Teachers’ Associa¬ 
tion and who brought to the commit¬ 
tee’s notice the coincidence of child 
labor, illiteracy, and high death-rate. 
It is precisely in those States which 
have done nothing or which have done 
the least to protect the children, that 
illiteracy is most prevalent and the 
death-rate is highest. 

—Medill McCormick. 

* * * 

HTHE periods of history that are most 
interesting are those which have 
been lighted up by spiritual bonfires. 
As we read about such epochs we seem 


316 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


to feel the fires rekindling in our 
bosoms. Through the identity of those 
historic flames with our own, we be¬ 
come aware of our portion in the past, 
and of our mission in the present. The 
names of the actors, to be sure, are 
changed; the names of the forces at 
work vary continually. Yet the sub¬ 
stance of the story is ever the same; 
the fable deals with ourselves. And 
therefore that fable stirs the intimate 
embers in us. Here, within us, are 
those smothered and banked furnaces 
which the stride of History has left 
behind it—the only now living part, 
the only real part and absolute rem¬ 
nant of the divine pageant. 

—John Jay Chapman. 

* * * 


^HILDREN of twelve can tend 
^ many automatic machines as com¬ 
petently as adults. Youths, in fact, ap¬ 
proach their highest wage during the 
very years in which the boys of a gen¬ 
eration ago were earning less than liv¬ 
ing wages as apprentices. Eighteen 
to tweny-five are the most gainful 
years for the “machinate manual.” 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 


erals think to conquer their enemies by 
making the sign of the cross, or by 
telling a rosary. 

It found all history full of petty and 
ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty 
was supposed to spend most of his time 
turning sticks into snakes, drowning 
boys for swimming on Sundays, and 
killing little children for the purposes 
of converting their parents. It found 
the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, 
the people in all countries down-trod¬ 
den, half naked, half starved, without 
reason in the world. Such was the 
condition of man when the morning of 
science dawned upon his brain, and 
before he had heard the sublime dec¬ 
laration that the universe is governed 
by law. 

—Robert G. Ingersoll. 

* * * 

TJ' NTHUSIASM is the power and 
the health of the mind. It is youth, 
ambition, WILL. Man lives and is 
worth while as long as his enthusiasm 
lives. And when enthusiasm dies, HE 
dies—although he may not know it. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 


f I TIE glory of science is, that it is 
freeing the soul—breaking the men¬ 
tal manacles—getting the brain out of 
bondage—giving courage to thought— 
filling the world with mercy, justice 
and joy. (Applause.) Science found 
agriculture plowing with a stick—reap¬ 
ing with a sickle—commerce at the 
mercy of the treacherous waves and 
the inconstant winds—a world without 
books—without schools—man denying 
the authority of reason, employing his 
ingenuity in the manufacture of instru¬ 
ments of torture, in building inquisi¬ 
tions and cathedrals. 

It found the land filled with malicious 
monks—with persecuting Protestants, 
and the burners of men. It found a 
world full of fear; ignorance upon its 
knees; credulity the greatest virtue; 
women treated like beasts of burden; 
cruelty the only meann of reformation. 
It found the world at the mercy of dis¬ 
ease and famine; men trying to read 
their fates in the stars, and to tell their 
fortunes by signs and wonders; gen¬ 


# * ❖ 

TS there not such a thing as the 
A philosophy of American history and 
politics? And if so, what is it? . . . 
Wise men say there are two sets of 
wills to nations and to persons—one 
set that acts and works for explainable 
motives—from teaching, intelligence, 
judgment, circumstance, caprice, emu¬ 
lation, greed, etc., and then another 
set, perhaps deep, hidden, unsuspected, 
yet often more potent than the first, 
refusing to be argued with, rising as 
it were out of abysses, resistlessly urg¬ 
ing on speakers, doers, communities, 
unwitting to themselves—the poet to 
his fieriest words—the race to pursue 
its loftiest ideal. Indeed, the paradox 
of a nation’s life and career, with all 
its wondrous contradictions, can prob¬ 
ably only be explained from these two 
wills, sometimes conflicting, each oper¬ 
ating in its sphere, combining in races 
or in persons, and producing strangest 
results. 

—Walt Whitman. 


317 


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A/TILLIONS of men on earth re- 
member distinctly the past fifty 
years, and their fathers remembered 
fifty years back. The hundred years 
behind us have seen a complete change 
in the ways of human beings and in the 
world’s methods. The stage coach, 
went, steam cars and steamboats came 
in. The telephone has come—CON¬ 
QUERING SPACE. The wireless 
telephone and telegraph have come— 
CONQUERING SPACE AND TIME. 
The flying machine has lifted men from 
the earth — CONQUERING THE 
LAW OF GRAVITATION. The 
automobile has replaced the horse on 
city streets, and will replace it on the 
farm. Electricity has lightened the 
labors of women, sweeping, washing, 
heating, refrigerating, sewing, cooling, 
lighting, driving machines, executing 
convicts. Man, born with ten fingers, 
provides himself through electricity 
and machinery with a thousand mil¬ 
lion fingers of steel. 

—Arthur Brisbane. 

* * * 

C TEP by step my investigation of 
^ blindness led me into the indus¬ 
trial world. And what a world it is! 

I must face unflinchingly a world of 
facts—a world of misery and degrada¬ 
tion, of blindness, crookedness, and sin, 
a world struggling against itself. How 
reconcile this world of fact with the 
bright world of my imagining? My 
darkness had been filled with the light 
of intelligence, and, behold, the outer 
day-lit world was stumbling and 
groping in social blindness. At first I 
was most unhappy; but deeper study 
restored my confidence. By learning 
the sufferings and burdens of men, I 
became aware as never before of the 
life-power that has survived the forces 
of darkness—the power which, though 
never completely victorious, is con¬ 
tinuously conquering. 

The very fact that we are still here 
carrying on the contest against the 
hosts of annihilation proves that on 
the whole the battle has gone for hu¬ 
manity. The world’s great heart has 
proved equal to the prodigious under¬ 
taking which God set it. Rebuffed, but 
always persevering; self-reproached, 
but ever regaining faith; undaunted, 
tenacious, the heart of man labors to¬ 
wards immeasureably distant goals. 

318 


Discouraged not by difficulties with¬ 
out, or the anguish of ages within, the 
heart listens to a sercret voice that 
whispers: “Be not dismayed; in the 
future lies the Promised Land.” 

—Helen Keller. 

* * * 

T AM aware that many object to the 
L severity of my language; but is 
there not cause for severity? I will be 
as harsh as Truth, and as uncom¬ 
promising as Justice. On this subject 
I do not wish to think, or speak, or 
write, with moderation. No! No! 
Tell a man whose house is on fire to 
give a moderate alarm; tell him to 
moderately rescue his wife from the 
hands of the ravisher; tell the mother 
to gradually extricate her babe from 
the fire into which it has fallen—but 
urge me not to use moderation in a 
cause like the present. I am in earn¬ 
est—I will not equivocate—I will not 
excuse—I will not retreat a single inch 
—and I will be heard. The apathy of 
the people is enough to make every 
statue leap from its pedestal and has¬ 
ten the resurrection of the dead. 

—William Lloyd Garrison. 

* * # 

TN moments of progress the noble 
succeed, because things are going 
their way: in moments of decadence 
the base succeed for the same reason; 
hence the world is never without the 
exhilaration of contemporary success. 

—G. B. Shaw. 

* ❖ 

C PEECH is the index of the mind. 

^ —Seneca. 

* H= * 

TJE said, “I see.” And they said: 

“He’s crazy; crucify him.” He 
still said: “I see.” And they said: 
“He’s an extremist.” And they toler¬ 
ated him. And he continued to say: 
“I see.” And they said: “He’s eccen¬ 
tric.” And they rather liked him, but 
smiled at him. And he stubbornly 
said again: “I see.” And they said: 
“There’s something in what he says.” 
And they gave him half an ear. But 
he said as if he’d never said it before: 
“I see.” And at last they were awake; 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


and they gathered about him and built 
a temple in his name. And yet he 
only said “I see.” And they wanted 
to do something for him. “What can 
we do to express to you our regret?” 
He only smiled. He touched them 
with the ends of his fingers and kissed 
them. What could they do for him? 
“Nothing more than you have done,” 
he answered. “And what was that?” 
they wanted to know. “You see,” he 
said, “that’s a reward enough; you 
see, you see. —Horace Traubel. 

* * * 

A/T AN is a land-animal. A land- 
animal can not live without land. 
All that man produces comes from the 
land; all productive labor, in the final 
analysis, consists in working up land, 
or materials drawn from land, into 
such forms as fit them for the satisfac¬ 
tion of human wants and desires. 
Man’s very body is drawn from the 
land. Children of the soil, we come 
from the land, and to the land, we 
must return. 

Take away from man all that belongs 
to the land, and what have you but a 
disembodied spirit? Therefore, he 
who holds the land on which and from 
which another man must live is that 
man’s master; and the man is his slave. 
The man who holds the land on which 
I must live, can command me to life 
or to death just as absolutely as 
though I were his chattel. 

Talk about abolishing slavery; We 
have not abolished slavery; we have 
only abolished one rude form of it— 
chattel slavery. There is a deeper and 
more insidious form, a more cursed 
form yet before us to abolish, in this 
industrial slavery that makes a man a 
virtual slave, while taunting him and 
mocking him in the name of freedom. 

—Henry George. 

* * * 

VX/dT is a happy and striking way of 
* * expressing a thought. It is not 
often, though it be lively and mantling, 
that it carries a great body with it. 
Wit, therefore, is fitter for diversion 
than business, being more grateful to 
fancy than judgment. Less judgment 
than wit, is more sail than ballast. Yet 
it must be confessed that wit gives an 
edge to sense, and recommends it ex¬ 
tremely. Where judgment has wit to 
express it, there is the best orator. 

—William Penn. 


A NY people anywhere being inclined 
and having the power, have the 
right to rise up and shake off the exist¬ 
ing government and form a new one 
that suits them better. 

—A. Lincoln. 

* * * 

TTP to the great struggle in 1914-18, 
^ the militarist had somewhat the 
better of the moral argument. The 
man who offered up his life for the 
welfare or glory of his country was do¬ 
ing a fine thing. But modern war is 
changing even that. Of the millions 
killed in battle, the millions under 
arms, comparatively few made the su¬ 
preme sacrifice voluntarily. They 
were conscripted. They had to go and 
to take the chance of being killed or 
dying with certainty up against a wall. 

—Irwin. 

* * * 

"VX/’E hold these truths to be self- 
’ ’ evident; that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their 
creator with inherent and inalienable 
rights, that among these are life, lib¬ 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness; 
that to secure these rights govern¬ 
ments are instituted among men de¬ 
riving their just powers from the con¬ 
sent of the governed; that whenever 
any form of government becomes de¬ 
structive of these ends, it is the right 
of the people to alter or to abolish it, 
and to institute new government, lay¬ 
ing its foundation on such principles 
and organizing its power in such form, 
as to them shall seem most likely to 
effect their happiness. Prudence in¬ 
deed will dictate that governments 
long established should not be changed 
for light and transient causes: and ac¬ 
cordingly all experience hath shown 
that mankind are more disposed to suf¬ 
fer while evils are sufferable, than to 
right themselves by abolishing the 
forms to which they are accustomed. 
But when a long train of abuses and 
usurpations begun at a distinguished 
period and pursuing invariably the 
same object, evinces a design to reduce 
them under absolute despotism, it is 
their right, it is their duty, to throw 
off such government, and to provide 
new guards for their future security. 

—Declaration of Independence. 


319 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


TN the war just finished, according to 
Historians, about nineteen millions 
died in battle or of wounds; probably 
5 to 7 millions were permanently dis¬ 
abled. Yet we were killing only by 
"retail” where in the next war, we 
shall, according to the words of author¬ 
ities, kill by the "wholesale.” At the 
time of the Armistice we were manu¬ 
facturing for the campaign of 1919 our 
Lewisite Gas. It was invisible, a 
sinking gas, which would search out 
the refugees of dugouts and cellars; 
if breathed it killed at once. Wher¬ 
ever it settled on the skin, it produced 
a poison which brought almost instant 
death. Masks alone were of no use 
against it. It had 55 times the 
"spread” of any poison gas used in the 
war. 

—Irwin. 

* * * 

p'OR a government to have the right 
A to punish the errors of men it is 
necessary that their errors must take 
the form of crime; they do not take 
the form of crime unless they disturb 
society when they engender fanati¬ 
cism ; hence men must avoid fanaticism 
in order to deserve toleration. 

—Voltaire. 

^ 

HPHE most unhappy of all men is the 
A man that cannot tell what he is go¬ 
ing to do, that has got no work cut out 
for him in the world, and does not go 
into it. For work is the grand cure of 
all the maladies and miseries that ever 
beset mankind—honest work, which 
you intend getting done. 

—Carlyle. 

* * * 

/"CONCERNING one successor of 
^ Lewisite Gas, an expert has said: 
“You burst a container carrying a 
minute quantity of the substance 
which makes the gas, at the foot of a 
tree. You do not see the fumes rise; it 
is invisible. But within a few seconds 
you see the leaves begin to shrivel. In 
the next war—unless we discover 
meantime some more effective methods 
of killing—clouds of such gas will 
sweep over hundreds of square miles, 
not only eliminating all unprotected 
life, animal and vegetable .but steriliz¬ 
ing the soil for about seven years. 


We can reasonably feel that Lewisite 
and the gas beyond are probably no 
longer the exclusive secret of the U. 
S. Government. We had allies in the 
war: doubtless they learned the for¬ 
mula. Even if not, once science knows 
that a formula exists, its rediscovery is 
only a matter of time. And search is 
quietly going on in the laboratories of 
Europe, men studying new ways to 
destroy life. 

—Irwin. 

* % % 

HPHIS little globe which is but a 
mere speck, travels through space 
with its fellows, lost in immensity. 
Man, a creature about five feet tall, is 
certainly a tiny thing, as compared 
with the universe. Yet one of these 
imperceptible beings declares to his 
neighbors; "Hearken unto me. The 
God of all these worlds speaks with my 
voice. There are nine billion of us wee 
ants upon earth, but only my ant-hole 
is precious in God’s sight. All the 
others are eternally damned by Him. 
Mine alone is blessed.” 

—Voltaire. 

* # * 

HPHE tree of liberty must be re- 
A freshed from time to time with the 
blood of patriots and tyrants. 

—Thomas Jefferson. 

% ❖ 

TPHE stomach is a slave that must 
accept everything that is given to 
it, but which avenges wrongs as slyly 
as does the slave. 

—Emile Soulvestre. 

* * * 

'T'lME to me is so precious that with 
A great difficulty can I steal one hour 
in eight days, either to satisfy myself 
or to gratify my friends. 

—John Knox. 

* * * 

TF we wish to be just judges of all 
things, let us first persuade our¬ 
selves of this: that there is not one of 
us without fault; no man is found who 
can acquit himself; and he who calls 
himself innocent does so with refer¬ 
ence to a witness, and not to his 
conscience. 

—Seneca. 


320 


SCRAP BOOK SECTION 


T FEEL most deeply that this whole 
A question of Creation is too profound 
for human intellect. A dog might as 
well speculate on the mind of Newton! 
Let each man hope and believe what 
he can. 

—Charles Darwin. 

* * * 

T ET us be glad that we are born in 
this age and within the swirl and 
current of the new freedom. Let us 
do each our share to leave the dams 
down, and not build them up in our 
own bosom; for it is in people’s bosoms 
that all these dams exist. We must 
permit the floods of life to run freely. 
It is not from any one of our reforms, 
arts, sciences, and churches but out 
of all of them that salvation flows. 
What shall we do to assist in this great 
process? What relation do we bear to 
the movement? That is the question 
which requires a lifetime for its an¬ 
swer. Our knowledge of the subject 
changes constantly under experience. 

At first we desire to help vigorously; 
and we do all in our power to assist 
mankind. As time goes on, we per¬ 
ceive more and more clearly that the 
advancement of the world does not de¬ 
pend upon us, but that we, rather, are 
bound up in it, and can command no 
foot-hold of our own. At last we see 
that our very ambitions, desires and 
hopes in the matter are a part of the 
Supernal Machinery moving through 
all things, and that our souls can be 
satisfied and our power exerted only in 
so far as we are taken up into that orig¬ 
inal motion, and merged in that primal 
power. Our minds thus dissolve under 
the grinding analysis of life, and leave 
behind nothing except God. 

Towards him we stand and look; and 
we, who started out with so many gifts 
for men, have nothing left in our 
satchel for mankind except a blessing. 

—John Jay Chapman. 


A WORLD grown more conscious of 
life-processes, a public seeking 
social welfare, waits to see if the cor¬ 
poration and the automatic machine 
can be swung somewhat more toward 
public good. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * * 

HAT he wants—what every man 
’ * above the grade of moron craves 
in toil—is a chance to express his 
personality within the limits of a 
specialty in which he knows himself 
proficient. 

—Arthur Pound. 

* * Hi 

Y OU better live your best and act 
your best and think your best to¬ 
day; for today is the sure preparation 
for tomorrow and all the other tomor¬ 
rows that follow. 

—Harriet Martineau. 

* * * 

A ND it is not only the children who 
suffer; nor is it alone the states 
refusing them protection which suffer. 
The whole Union suffers. In a democ¬ 
racy like ours the strong suffer by rea¬ 
son of the weak and the literate by rea¬ 
son of the ignorant. For in proportion 
as some little citizens are denied the 
opportunity to qualify themselves for 
citizenship, and to bear their share of 
burden of citizenship, so is the burden 
of the other heavier. Obviously, a child 
robbed of its play, and denied its 
schooling, is refused the physical and 
mental development necessary to guar¬ 
antee to it the free pursuit of happiness 
and the untrammeled enjoyment of 
life and liberty. If it be denied the full 
privileges of an American citizen, so 
likewise is it handicapped in its as¬ 
sumption of the obligations of a citi¬ 
zen. 

—Medill McCormick. 


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